The first was mostly about Villanelle, with Eve almost feeling like a supporting role this time, it’s much more even. The balance of the book also feels improved. Whether it’s attending a conference of neo-Nazis on an Alpine mountain-top or shivering in a cell, deep in the bowels of the infamous Lubyanka prison, the reader feels there. Staying up late, waking up early, in front of the TV… I ripped through it, powered by Jennings’s great eye for description particularly in terms of locations. I read the whole thing in about 30 hours, which is far from my usual leisurely pace. The rest of it though, is really well-done, from the explanation of The Twelve’s intent through to Eve’s dogged piecing together of her target’s identity. Jennings said his approach to the second book was altered by the strong reaction of fans to the TV version, and you can tell: there are a couple of scenes which can only be described as fan service, apparently inspired by one notorious broadcast line This angle really doesn’t fit, considering Eve finished the first book literally tooling up to kill Villanelle, and I found it an abrupt and jarring shift in tone. It was the twisted relationship between the two which separated the first book and the TV series, with the show having much more development in this area. Can wits and persistence counter cold-blooded psychopathy? Eve is very much a desk jockey, and not exactly suited to go head-to-head with a ruthless killer.
The latter is struggling to balance her increasing obsession with Villanelle, and a husband who would greatly prefer it if she was not jetting off to Venice or Moscow at a moment’s notice, leaving him to open a tin of beans. To that point, we had more of the cat-and-mouse games between the international assassin codenamed “Villanelle”, and harried MI-5 operative Eve Polastri.
I’m really curious to see whether the TV show follows suit, because if so – nothing will be quite the same again. I have to say, well-played: I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as stunned by a twist in a novel before, yet thinking about what had gone before, it made perfect sense. Then, just when I was expecting this to wrap up and set the stage for the second season, Jennings drops a major bomb. Indeed, by the end, we have almost got to the same point as at the end of the TV show, albeit by a rather different route. The second book does make a significant effort to narrow the gap.
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆½ “I’m just you without the guilt.”Īs we recently discussed, the first book and first season of the TV series had some major differences.
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