AESOP - Book Review

AESOP by Michele Packard is a fast-paced novel that introduces private contractor (Hit Lady)  Matti Baker whose job is to find and eliminate individuals who pose a threat to America.  Packard has created a kickass heroine that possesses beauty, brains, cunning, guts and brawn. In this novel, Matti is out to stop some very bad actors, and the job is exasperating. She doesn't know it, but someone is out for her too. She has or knows something of importance that someone powerful wants very badly.  So sometimes she is the hunter, and at other times she is the hunted.

She uses her beauty and charm to eliminate one bad man but sometimes the hunted are immune to her charm, and things have to become a bit more violent. She has the help of two wonderful dogs, Bruiser and Koda, that are trained to rip an adversary to shreds if needed. But even as talented and careful as she is trained to be, things don’t always go as planned. In fact, in one situation Matti gets abducted and terribly beaten, but after a long hospital stay and lots of surgeries bounces back.  She is part Bionic Woman and as cunning as Pussy Galore; she is the female version of Mitch Rapp.

Matti Baker doesn’t live only for the adventure of being a private contractor; she is also a mother of triplets - 2 boys and one girl and a loving wife to a very supportive husband.  Her family is important to her, and she finds herself torn when her assignment forces her to leave them or when she feels they are in danger because of her job.

Packard likes to use events from movies to illustrate the action occurring in her story. A memorable example is when Packard uses Stephen King’s scene of Annie Wilkes smashing Paul Sheldon's feet with a sledgehammer to convey what is happening to Matti when her abductor’s interrogation goes to the extreme.

Packard puts Matti through some terrible situations. In one scene she is again tortured, but instead of her crying out in agony she laughs.
     “I stuck out my left foot purposefully to say, ‘bring it on.’ He grabbed it and pulled it to his knee level and opened the pliers, He looked at DD, who nodded to proceed. He yanked that pinky toenail straight off. I literally laughed out loud, as I could not feel a single thing.”

Matti Baker is deeply involved in the most intriguing and dangerous missions. AESOP contains a perfect balance of action with the right amount of human context woven in. I found Matti Baker a very relatable, wonderfully strong and resourceful female character. Let’s hope that Michele Packard keeps Matti alive to help keep America safe.