Review: The Reluctant Assassin (The Covid Chronicles) by Peter Moore

The exceptional and exciting life of the mysterious Delphine continues in The Reluctant Assassin by Peter Moore, the closing tale of his ambitious series, The Covid Chronicles.

A great deal has changed since Delphine’s dramatic exit from the world of high-class escorts, including being a mother of twins, but intrigue inevitably follows in her footsteps. After innocently offering her info-extracting services to one of her closest friends – and one of the most powerful men in England – Delphine is triggered by her past trauma and finds herself on the guilty side of a corpse.

Her instincts for self-preservation suddenly plunge her into the shadowy world of conspiracies and villainous men, as well as a false grave, but her years of navigating the dangerous waters of manipulation make her an ideal assassin for MI6 – a femme fatale in every sense of the word. Determined to keep her daughters Alex and Zander safe, her body count begins to rise, so she agrees to her new post as an unlikely 007, flexible and fierce as ever.

The crux of this thriller is a fight for future tech – mobile phones charged by tiny specks of nuclear material that could revolutionize entire economies and telecommunication structures around the world. With two of these phones in hand, and a lead on a top-shelf auction to sell this monopoly-making tech to the highest bidder, Delphine and Q put themselves squarely in the sights of a deadly mastermind with an appetite for domination. As this ever-widening adventure unfurls, the tenacious protagonist must find a way to balance the family life she loves with the high-stakes career she seems born to pursue.

While the story is gripping, building intriguingly on Delphine’s character, the narrative voice often reads like an internal monologue, giving readers a bit too much insight into her thoughts and reactions to every small event. This can become tiring, and has a tendency to rob certain scenes of their implicit tension. Similarly, the dialogue isn’t always believable, nor are the relationships; there are uncertain dynamics between Delphine and M, as well as Q, but neither connection feels authentic, and is only really developed through exposition. Moore would be well served to resist the temptation to tell, rather than show, as the prose is often overly leading.

There is also room for technical improvement, particularly when it comes to grammatical accuracy, natural word order, tense inconsistency, occasional misspelled words, and continuity in the story. The early parts of this novel feel rushed, which could make it difficult for readers to keep up, as the chapters occasionally resemble disconnected vignettes, like a movie trailer for a spy thriller, instead of the full film. For example, Delphine’s ability to handily dispatch a trained assassin with a stiletto to the eye, prior to any real training, feels like a bridge too far for the suspension of readers’ disbelief.

That being said, the unpredictability of this adrenaline-fueled plot remains consistent from the previous parts of this series, making it hard to put down. So despite its rushed feel, plot gaps, and minor imperfections, The Reluctant Assassin is an entertaining standalone installment of this original series.