From Kirkus Reviews:
A fourth outing for 50-ish Susan Melville (Miss Melville Regrets, etc.)--painter, heiress, respected member of old-line society, and ex-hired-gun. Now affluent, Melville kills only when the spirit moves, which it does when she discovers that old enemy Berry Rundle has been, for decades, the Begum of Gandistan, the world's largest producer of opium poppies, and is the power behind the throne of her son, American-educated King Serwar. Begum and son are visiting New York--the Begum's true identity still literally under wraps--supposedly in connection with Rundle House, a charity supporting unwed mothers whose board of trustees is suddenly awash with the names of big-league mobsters. The Begum lets Melville know that she has her own hit list and Melville is numero uno--a revelation that leads to a high-noon chase and shoot-out in Bloomingdale's. Miss Melville has become a played-out, charmless bore, in a story silly beyond words. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From Publishers Weekly:
As witty and deadly as in earlier appearances ( Miss Melville's Revenge , et al), freelance assassin and socialite artist Susan Melville here takes on an international drug cartel. The head of a secret government organization needs a female hitperson to eliminate the reclusive Begum of Gandistan, mother of the ruling sultan. After initially declining the job, Miss Melville changes her mind when she comes face to face with the Begum and recognizes the haughty woman as her old enemy Berengaria "Berry" Rundle. The Begum, it seems, is setting up a global drug distribution system to export Gandistan's main crop, opium, using New York's Rundle House for unwed mothers as a front. Miss Melville's challenge is to devise a plan that will allow her to do away with Berry and get away herself. As in her previous books, Smith aims pithy barbs at fashionable New York society and those who take it seriously.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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