THE HOUSEWIFE ASSASSIN

Full Name:	Donna Stone
Series Name:	Housewife Assassin
Nationality:	American
Organization:	-
Occupation	Agent

Creator:	Josie Brown
Time Span:	2011 - 2020

ABOUT THE SERIES

       Donna Stone is an agent with Acme Industries.
       More specifically, she is an assassin for this ultra-secret organization in America's Intelligence Community. Acme is actually one of several CIA-sanctioned subcontractors which exist so that certain tasks deemed vital for national security can get done and when Congress asks about it, the Agency can go all holier-than-thou and truthfully (well, sorta) avow they had nothing to do with it.
       When first we meet the resourceful and soon-to-be deadly Ms. Stone, she imparts to us via a preamble to the first chapter in that recorded adventure: "Any woman can be both the perfect housewife and an accomplished assassin, because both functions require the same qualities: creativity; a never-say-die attitude; and an attention to details, no matter how small..." She starts the actual chapter with these words of explanation: "All I really needed to know about being a freelance assassin I learned before my youngest daughter, Trisha, started kindergarten."
       Stone is the proud mother of three children, Mary who is 12 and according to her mom a first-class flirt (just like her mother, Stone admits). Then there is Jeff who is 10, much into sports and a frequent pain in Mary's neck as all younger brothers should be. And Trisha who is in kindergarten.
       Stone is a single mother because her husband, Carl, is, to some friends and neighbors, always away on business and to the children has run off with another woman some time back. Stone knows the truth, though, which is that Carl is dead, killed working in a business she had no idea he worked in when she met him, fell in love with him, and then married him. The now deceased Carl was an agent with the CIA, something Stone found out "five years ago, on the evening he was murdered". That date was also the year the youngest was born.
       And Stone makes ends meet by working as a paid killer for Acme which when we meet her is also how she hopes to someday avenge his death. As she puts it, "each hit takes me closer to the bastards who took him away from us. At least, that is what I tell myself".
       As the series progresses we will learn more about Carl (none good) and lots more about mixing single parenthood and assassinations, not the most common of pairings. We will see a good amount of changes in the lives of all involved but we will always keep seeing Donna Stone in some incredibly bizarre and usually hilarious situations.

BOOKS

Number of Books:	19
First Appearance:	2011
Last Appearance:	2020


1			The Housewife Assassin's Handbook Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2011 Donna Stone never wanted to be an assassin for the government, it just sort of happened. What she did want to a chance to get even for her husband's murder ... and to pay the monthly bills. So, when the chance to do both came around ...

2			The Housewife Assassin's Guide To Gracious Killing Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2012 Donna Stone has a to-do list. Item 1: file for divorce. Item 2: make sure an assassin does not kill the visiting Russian president and start WWIII.

3			The Housewife Assassin's Killer Christmas Tips Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2012 If Donna Stone and her boss, Jack, cannot find a shipping container that has a lot of heat-seeking missiles in it, things are going to get hot at Christmas time.

4			The Housewife Assassin's Relationship Survival Guide Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2013 Relationships are rough sometimes. Like when you are dating a terrorist. Or when the man you like is married. Or when you have to break out of a Mexican prison and stop a massacre.

5			The Housewife Assassin's Vacation To Die For Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2013 The NSA scientist with the plague virus in hand has disappeared and is thought to be hiding in one of three vacation resorts. Donna Stone and Jack must visit each but each has its own share of trouble, like a nude singles sanctuary or Kamp KidStuff where some of the young-uns can be murder.

6			The Housewife Assassin's Recipes For Disaster Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2013 Donna Stone knows her task of keeping both presidential candidates alive when assassins are after each. It gets harder when Stone has an ax to grind against one of them.

7			The Housewife Assassin's Hollywood Scream Play Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2014 In Hollywood where a producer has offered to turn Donna Stone's life's story into a movie, Stone and Jack are using the location shoots to search for needed info on the Quorum. That organization is not so thrilled.

8			The Housewife Assassin's Killer App Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2014 Looking for a hacker who has been causing all sorts of trouble in the US Intelligence Community, Donna Stone goes undercover in three different high tech corporations, one of which has an artificial intelligence to die for, or from.

9			The Housewife Assassin's Hostage Hosting Tips Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2014 The task facing Donna Stone on this assignment is to stop terrorists from destroying a meeting of foreign dignitaries in a hotel. The stakes are quite high for them, her, and her children.

10			The Housewife Assassin's Garden of Deadly Delights Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2015 Genetically enhanced corn being released into the general public has been infected with a brain-eating virus. Donna Stone goes undercover to learn by whom and for what reason.

11			The Housewife Assassin's Tips For Weddings, Weapons, and Warfare Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2015 At long last Donna Stone and her boss Jack are going to tie the knot but as they prepare for their upcoming wedding, they have to deal with finding who the Quorum terrorist mole in the White House is.

12			The Housewife Assassin's Husband Hunting Hints Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2015 To rescue her new husband, Jack Craig, from torture and death, Donna Stone must turn traitor and work as a double agent for their nemesis, the Quorum.

13			The Housewife Assassin's Ghost Protocol Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2016 When terrorists are killed, the least they could do is stay that way but apparently not. Some of those who were believed to have been eliminated are still alive and back to kicking. To find the truth, Donna Stone and Jack must go deep undercover.

14			The Housewife Assassin's Terrorist TV Guide Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2016 The organization that Donna Stone works for has learned a terrorist group has infiltrated a popular television reality show and plans to use it to show a live atrocity. Stone goes undercover to stop them.

15			The Housewife Assassin's Deadly Dossier Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2017 In this prequel, Jack Craig is tasked with looking into the strange death of his organization's best hit man, Carl Stone. Doing so gets him too close to the man's widow, Donna Stone.

16			The Housewife Assassin's Greatest Hits Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2017 As she lingers near death, Donna Stone is revisited by the many deaths in her life - those of ones close to her and those of ones she caused.

17			The Housewife Assassin's Fourth Estate Sale Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2018 A mega-media conglomerate is the tool being used by a foreign magnate to start a new world war. Donna Stone and her husband Jack must infiltrate that world of television and print to find who and stop them.

18			The Housewife Assassin's Horrorscope Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2018 Twelve people hold the clues needed to stop a Doomsday plot that will see the U.S. involved in another war. Each person happens to have been born under a different zodiac sign. Donna and Jack and their team must find all 12.

19			The Housewife Assassin's White House Keeping Seal Of Approval Written by Josie Brown Copyright: 2020 With her husband Jack about to be branded a traitor, Donna Craig must use her position as security advisor to the President to find who is the mole that is destroying the credibility of the intelligence communities.

MY COMMENTS

       I am sure many of those whose spy-oriented online company I keep wonder about me sometimes. On many days I will join in deep discussions about the works of Le Carré, Deighton, Greene, Ambler, and Forsyth. I will throw in a tidbit or two about Fleming and a few of the new masters like Herron and Cumming and Duns.
       And then I take incredible delight in a series like the Housewife Assassin. Just the name would likely cause eyebrows to be raised and likely my stature as an "expert" falls a bit.
       Too bad!!!!
       I read for enjoyment. First and only reason. I do not strive to learn anything about humanity and its foibles or the nature of life or the conflict of right-versus-wrong. I like to be entertained.
       The authors mentioned above all entertained the heck out of me. And so does Josie Brown's wonderfully fun and amusing series about Donna Stone. She has, at the time of this writing, 17 adventures out and I have paid good money for each one. I really like Stone. I like her kids. I sort of like her new husband and boss, Jack. I definitely despised her old husband and scoundrel, Carl.
       I especially love the fantastic twists on life and convention that Stone must go through to keep putting bad guys six feet under while making sure there is food on the table and the kids get to their activities on time (they are always late because, well, something always comes up).
       This is a delightful series that I take a lot of delight from. I hope you do as well because I want more adventures.

GRADE

My Grade: A-

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