The present tense, third person narration is strange and sounded wrong to my years.But for this book, I kept having to rewind because my mind kept wandering off and thinking of other things.Īll in all, I few things really irked me: I normally love audiobooks – my attention rarely wavers. In the fourth one Eve is looking for revenge over Simon’s murder, and Villanelle is on a rescue mission for her handler and none of it seems to be connected for makes any sense.Īll of it is unexplainably boring somehow. Villanelle kills another guy and Eve goes there with a colleague. The third story takes place in Shanghai for reasons I cannot explain to you. Villanelle kills him and all of a sudden Eve is on to this female serial killer. The second story introduces Eve, who works for MI-6 and who is tasked with protecting a crazy radical Russian professor. I warn that the whole thing doesn’t make too much sense, so if you plan on reading it, remember to turn off your brain. Sociopath girl who eventually gets arrested and offered the job and lots of money and clothes.

The first story tell us the story of Villanelle – no Eve yet -, and how she has come to be an assassin. The underlying story is mostly similar, though different chronologically. If I had gone in with the different expectation, I might have enjoyed it more. You keep getting re-introduced to the characters and I was so confused. But it doesn’t really work as a novel because you lack the overarching cohesive narrative.

After the success of the TV show, the author decided to cash in and then started writing sequels which actually diverge from the show.Īs a collection of spy/detective novellas it is fine, I guess. Here’s the thing: Codename Villanelle was not originally a novel (which I didn’t discover until after I finished the audiobook), but a collection of 4 novellas which were grouped together in 2018. I’m not caught up to the series, but when the book showed up on an Audible deal, I snatched it up and thought I was in for a fun ride. Something about Villanelle and Eve’s twisted obsessive relationship was fascinating to me. A few months ago I finally gave in and watched season 1 of Killing Eve, and I really enjoyed it.

Codename villanelle series