Codename Villanelle

Starred review from May 14, 2018
Superior prose and a cracker jack plot lift this exceptional spy thriller and series launch from Jennings (Beauty Story). Assassin Oxana Vorontsova, who was once a linguistics student at the University of Perm, is employed by someone she knows only as Konstantin, who works for a secret international organization called the Twelve, a dozen men who decide which evildoers who threaten the stability of the world should die. Three years earlier, Konstantin rescued Oxana from the Dobryanka women’s remand center in the Ural Mountains, where she was serving time for murdering three gangsters. After a year of intensive training, Oxana now goes by the code name Villanelle. After carrying out several assigned killings, she guns down Russian political theorist Viktor Kedrin in London, which brings her to the attention of former British MI5 agent Eve Polastri, who was in charge of protecting Kedrin. Eve slowly begins putting together the pieces of the Villanelle puzzle. The wide-open ending points to more to come in the struggle between these two resourceful antagonists. Readers will eagerly await the sequel.

Basis for the hit show Killing Eve.Oxana Vorontsova is studying linguistics at university when she's arrested for murder. A short, brutal existence in a penal colony is her likeliest future--until a stranger offers her an alternative. So Oxana becomes Villanelle, and Villanelle is an assassin. Her work for a mysterious consortium called "The Twelve" takes her from Paris to Palermo and then to London. That's where she crosses paths with a midlevel functionary in the British intelligence service. Eve Polastri is Villanelle's polar opposite. She lives in a cluttered, tiny flat with her adoring husband, Niko, a math teacher. They're thinking about having a baby when a Russian nationalist is murdered on Eve's watch. Finding his murderer quickly becomes Eve's obsession, and it soon becomes clear that Eve and Villanelle have more in common than it seems at first glance. The basic outline of this story will be familiar to viewers watching the BBC America series starring Sandra Oh. There are significant differences between the show and the books, but one thing they share is their episodic nature. This book is a novella; compared to most thrillers, it's quite short, and readers looking for a conclusion will be dissatisfied by the cliffhanger ending. The brevity makes for a quick pace, and the sections of the story that focus on Villanelle are full of action and sumptuous glimpses of European luxury, and Jennings gives us just enough backstory to believe in this glamorous psychopath. Eve is not such a recognizable type. She is both more relatable and more complex, but Jennings never slows down enough to develop this character. We don't really understand why she becomes so fixated on Villanelle, and the clash between her humdrum life and her work for MI5 isn't really explored.Compulsively readable but a bit thin.

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March 1, 2018
Unrepentant murderess Oxana Vorontsova was plucked from a brutal Russian prison by Konstantin (the death broker for a cabal of powerful businessmen) and reborn as the elite assassin Villanelle. After years of killing beneath the radar, Villanelle becomes visible to a worthy adversary when she assassinates controversial Russian political agitator, Viktor Kedrin, in London. In the assassination's fallout, Eve Polastri's failure to accurately assess the threat to Kedrin results in her dismissal from MI6 and leaves her determined to catch the killer who destroyed her career. Eve is hired by a covert government task force hunting Villanelle's shadowy employers, and she jumps on her nemesis' trail with zeal. In the meantime, Villanelle continues eliminating her employer's targets in Shanghai and Odessa, where she takes thrill-seeking risks that could come back to haunt her. Detailed portrayals of Villanelle's globe-hopping hits and Eve's strategic hunt create strong suspense, but character-driven readers may find the key players predictable. Still, this is a promising series setup, especially if the coming episodes add layers to these deadly femmes. An upcoming BBC America series based on the Jennings novels may spur interest.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)