Luke Jennings

This is a darkly comic story told with wit and style. What I love most is the contrast between the two characters – ruthless assassin Villanelle with her international luxury lifestyle and flamboyant promiscuity and MI5 operative Eve with her engagingly eccentric husband and her functional clothing and down-at-heel flat.
For me, the book is a more coherent thriller than the TV drama (Killing Eve) which is played more for laughs. I like the way the cat-and-mouse game between the two show more protagonists builds into mutual obsession. The characters in the book (even the minor ones) behave in a believable and intriguing way. It’s a high-concept thriller and so you don’t necessarily expect the events to be realistic, but it’s more satisfying when the psychology is.
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I received a copy of Codename Villanelle from the publisher via Netgalley.
Read my longer post, Book vs TV: Codename Villanelle and Killing Eve on my blog https://katevane.com/2018/10/29/book-vs-tv-codename-villanelle-and-killing-eve/ show less

*thbbpt* Librarything apparently refuses to recognise this title as the third in the Killing Eve series, and I can quite understand why - it's terrible! What happened, Luke Jennings? Maybe I should have held off binge-watching the BBC adaptation, which is different to the books yet equally entertaining, but the change in narration and the completely out of character behaviour for both Eve and Villanelle completely ruined the last (please let this be the last!) in the original trilogy for me. show more

Still ridiculously quick to read, the action follows straight on from the last book, with the two women on the run after faking Eve's death. They head to Russia, meet up with more Russian clichés including Villanelle's ex who now wants to identify as 'they/them', and somehow end up working for The Twelve. Eve, under her hitwoman lover's tutelage, also notches up two kills of her own, including a vicious strike back with a pencil. But what ruined everything for me was turning the cat and mouse relationship of the previous books into a pathetic romance novel now that Eve and Villanelle are together - virtually every chapter includes some trite dialogue about who loves who most, or Eve getting jealous over Villanelle and her ex, and my particular favourite, pseudo-psychological 'insights' into Villanelle's 'psychopathic' personality. Eve calling Villanelle, the dangerous and unpredictable killing machine of the first two books, 'sweetie' just made me gag.

After reading the books and watching the series, I would say that the books are better - to a point. The series is different in tone and direction, relying on 'absurd' BBC comedy (loud incidental music and droll one-liners) and Villanelle's fashion aesthetic, while replacing half of the male characters with female counterparts. The plot definitely needed a boost for the screen, and I'm glad they avoided the Moonlighting effect between Eve and Villanelle, with the two still at a suspicious stalemate at the end of series three. All very dramatic and good fun to read/watch, but boy howdy, is this a terrible climax for the books! show less

'Speedboats, made-up aristocratic titles, exploding dildos . . . You’re not living in a fucking TV series, Villanelle.’

Goddamnit, I'm hooked. My only complaint is that this 'trilogy' could have been one novel - reading each instalment only takes a few hours - but apart from that I love Villanelle and her weird relationship with Eve. Great characters, high drama, dark humour!

I avoided Killing Eve when the series was popular because that's me, but decided belatedly to give the books which form 'the basis' of the TV adaptation a try - and I'm impressed! I was a bit concerned initially about a male author writing female characters, from the beautiful but deadly Villanelle to Eve, the woman tasked with hunting her down, who is described thus:

With her make-up-free complexion and shoulder-length hair gathered in a scrappy up-do, she looks like someone for whom there show more are more important things than being thought pretty.

But Luke Jennings just about gets away with semi-objectifying the female characters by making Villanelle such a cool character - shades of the obnoxious The Girl With ... but less of the little girl victim saved by the rugged hero and more an emotionless murder machine. The dialogue is believable too.

Fast paced and fun to read, I have already downloaded book two (thanks to the cliffhanger format)! show less