The Old Woman with the Knife: A Novel

"The opening of The Old Woman with the Knife – 65-year-old Hornclaw hunts her mark in a subway car while riders avoid offering her a seat – sets its gripping, bone-dry tone. Originally titled Pagwa (bruised fruit), the novel is by turns a character study, a One Last Job thriller, and a dark comedy about the indignities of aging and work (her mom-and-pop assassin business is, like everything else around her, being gentrified). But some of its best moments make a poignant register of life’s little stings; rarely has a peach forgotten in the kitchen been so keenly felt."