Most are in their late fifties or early sixties, with the kind of faces that you instantly forget. Successful, judging from their quietly expensive clothes. At its centre, beneath a heavy art deco chandelier, is a long table bearing a Bugatti bronze of a panther.Īt first glance the twelve men sitting around the table look ordinary enough. The east wing was once a banqueting hall, but now functions as a conference room. The building faces the lake, and is fronted by tall windows through which silk curtains are visible. The gardens are imposing, and perhaps even beautiful, but the deep shadows lend the place a forbidding air, which is echoed by the severe lines of the Palazzo itself. It’s late June, and a faint breeze touches the pines and cypresses that cluster like sentinels around the rocky headland. The Palazzo Falconieri stands on a promontory on one of the smaller Italian lakes. Codename Villanelle is a sleek, fast-paced international thriller from an exciting new voice in fiction. The ensuing chase will lead them on a trail around the world, intersecting with corrupt governments and powerful criminal organizations, all leading towards a final confrontation from which neither will emerge unscathed. Eve, whose quiet and otherwise unextraordinary life belies her quick wit and keen intellect, accepts the mission. But when she murders an influential Russian politician, she draws a relentless foe to her tail.Įve Polastri (not a codename) is a former MI6 operative hired by the national security services for a singular task: to find and capture or kill the assassin responsible, and those who have aided her. A catlike psychopath whose love for the creature comforts of her luxurious lifestyle is second only to her love of the game, she specializes in murdering the world’s richest and most powerful. Villanelle (a codename, of course) is one of the world’s most skilled assassins. The breakneck thriller that inspired TV sensation Killing Eve, starring Sandra Oh, “unlike any other spy drama you’ve seen” ( Daily Beast).

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