spy race around the world, crossing powerful criminal organizations and dangerous governments, each trying to come out on top. We last saw Eve and Villanelle in a spy vs. "If you want us to remain silent - if you want to retain your freedom, your job, and your reputation - you need to tell us everything, and I mean everything."
But for those who like a spy novel, it’s pretty much ticking most of the boxes you would expect… albeit with goats.Eve and Villanelle plan for a high-stakes showdown in this sophisticated follow-up to the spy thriller that inspired the hit TV series Killing Eve. There are still some overly gratuitous descriptions of women’s bodies. Some of my criticisms remain there’s still a lot of name-dropping of brands that I find weirdly disconcerting and distracting. Some of the twists feel faintly ridiculous (as does the ending) and there are very small goats involved as well.
Villanelle feels more of a rounded character and the tension between her and Eve is ramped up, largely through an absence that is not felt on TV. It becomes clear very quickly that the universe in the books is not that of the show and it feels like they should be treated as two separate beings. Eve is still on Villanelle’s trail and getting closer, with potentially devastating results. Villanelle is tasked with the assassination of a far-right leader who hosts a festival of all the worst people in Western politics, including those who resemble a particular beer-swilling, ex-banker ‘man of the people who may or may not have recently started a long walk for publicity and another very wealthy politician who is said to bear an uncanny likeness to both Lord Snooty from the Beano and a haunted pencil. (You can read the Washington Post piece here and a blog I wrote about writing it- and what I would have written had I had double the word length here.)Īs this is a novel, rather than Codename Villanelle’s novellas, the storyline feels more coherent and fleshed out. However in a weird and exciting turn of events, I was commissioned to write a piece about the differences between the books and the series for The Washington Post- all based on a tweet I wrote as I was reading it.
I’m not going to lie- I wasn’t intending on reading the second Killing Eve novel, especially so soon after reading the first one and not being massively keen on it.
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