User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I'm a homosexual having a panic attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: really liked it
Thank you so much to Net Galley, The publishers and the author for an ARC copy for review.
I was so excited to read and review this book, after just finishing watching "Killing Eve"
A thrilling duel between Villanelle, an elite female assassin, and Eve Polastri, the MI6 agent who is tasked with hunting her down.
In a hotel room in Venice, where she's just completed a routine assassination, Villanelle receives a late-night call.
Eve Polastri has discovered that a senior MI5 officer is in the pay of the Twelve, and is about to debrief him. As Eve interrogates her subject, desperately trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, Villanelle moves in for the kill.
The duel between the two women intensifies, as does their mutual obsession, and when the action moves from the high passes of the Tyrol to the heart of Russia, Eve finally begins to unwrap the enigma of her adversary's true identity.
What do I love about this book and the series, especially in the books.
It is two things, the enormous humour that is added to these books especially Villanelle, a reckless but very interesting assassin and of course Eve, not your typical M16 agent,in fact you cannot get further away from an agent, but it works.
The book speeds a long at a great pace, with great action, great pace, some violence, some laugh out loud moments, and as we get to end some great twists and surprises.
The great relationship/obsession between the two main characters is so well done.
A great book, really fun to read.
Rating: really liked it
The Venice lagoon is shallow, with an average depth of ten metres, but there are declivities of more than twice this…in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries Poveglia was a quarantine station for the crews of ships harbouring the plague. In the early twentieth century it was home to a mental institution where, Venetians say, patients were subjected to sinister experiments. Now abandoned, and reputed to be haunted, the island has a desolate look about it, and tourist craft rarely venture there.No Tomorrow (Killing Eve#2) follows on from where Codename Villanelle left off, in London, where a senior member of MI5 counter espionage branch, while cycling home to his wife, is thinking about his Serbian mistress and yacht in the South of France, and the $15m in the British Virgin Islands account – when he is intercepted by an MI6 team investigating the activities of a shadowy group known as “The 12”. “The traitor” is told to be ready for transfer to the former government research centre at Dever, in Hampshire, early the next morning. Eve Polastri wonders if he will consider self-harm, but her boss, Richard, dismisses it.
‘Kill himself? Dennis? No, he’s not the type. I’ve known him since we were at Oxford together, and he’s a ducker and diver. The sort who thinks you can sort out any problem, no matter how tricky, over a decent bottle of wine in a good restaurant, preferably on someone else’s expense account.’The action switches to Venice where Ukrainian hard-man, Rinat Yevtukh, leader of Golden Brotherhood in Odessa, is fascinated by a striking woman in the hotel bar and agrees to let her take him to lunch the following day. Notch up two more victims for the female assassin, who Eve only got a glimpse of in Shanghai, where she killed Eve’s colleague Simon Mortimer. Eve has very little to go on, until her home is broken into but nothing taken, an expensive bracelet left for her as a trophy.
This one ticked all the boxes. Located in Venice, London, the Austrian High Tauern and Moscow, the detailed tradecraft of the assassin as she goes about her deadly work, and the frustrations of the woman tracking her, until she becomes the “next target” - orbiting each other like twin satellites. A strong supporting cast of Eve’s team and long-suffering husband, and Villanelle’s new handler and girlfriends. Even the minor characters bring something to the plot. I added a few phrases to my fractured Russian, and author Luke Jennings’s descriptions present a masterclass for any aspiring writer.
Eve follows Richard out of the gallery, across the riverside walkway, and down a slipway to a floating jetty to which dinghies and other small craft are moored. It’s low tide, and the jetty rocks gently beneath their feet. There’s a faint smell of ooze and seaweed, and the slow rasp of mooring chains shifting with the river’s rise and fall. It’s cold, but Richard doesn’t seem to notice.Verdict: The deceptions and twisty ending has me reaching for the 3rd book in the trilogy; but I strongly suggest they are read in order.
Rating: really liked it
This was
so much better than the first book in the trilogy. Gone (mostly) are the entirely gratuitous sex scenes, gone is much of the ridiculously unrealistic British Intelligence hi-jinks; in fact some of it is even explained away towards the end of this book, which made me a much happier camper.
The plot really gets going and the pacing is ramped up in this one, there’s still plenty of well-written action and the character interactions get a lot more interesting. I’m also liking how it’s very different from the t.v. show; I didn’t see the final twist coming at all.
Bring on book three...
Rating: really liked it
While I eagerly await series 2 of Killing Eve to arrive on UK TV I thought I'd delve into Luke Jenning's second novel featuring international assassin Oxana Vorontsova.
No Tomorrow is pretty much the same formula as the previous novel, Codename Villanelle, with tight dialogue & fast paced action plus some nice touches of humour.
I was reminded of a line from the James Bond film Never Say Never Again in which Q (Algernon) says to 007: "Now you're on this I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex & violence." And that, dear readers, is exactly what you will get if you read this novel!
Rating: really liked it
So looking forward to this follow-up.
Luke takes the character of Villanelle further and makes this area of ruthless female assassin his own territory.
She is still, the go to hit man, for the nebulous grouping, known as ‘the twelve’ who operate outside any sponsored country’s influence to exercise their own view of a new world order.
She has a new handler less familiar and not as close with her and the contracts continue to bring her brief moments of elation. Killing and bringing death makes her feel most alive but she longs for more dangerous missions. Meanwhile, her fixation with Eve places her at greater risk and upsets her controllers who feel her pre-occupation with the British secret service operative, Eve, dangerous to their activities. Despite, this sense of an unfulfilled sexual chemistry it becomes increasingly obvious that Eve must die.
I really found this unique relationship intriguing and made the hunt for Villanelle and the growing danger to Eve fascinating and marks the story out from other modern spy thrillers. I can also understand how it works so well as a TV adaptation.
Like a runaway train ride it is a desperate rollercoaster full of thrills and tricky turns. Like a steep mountain road, you worry that you did not test your brakes when you were prompted. The gradient gets away from you as you head on to certain disaster. This story propels you to the impending death of Eve, as the title suggests. However, as you learn more about her you fear for her and hope things will work out. Equally, you don’t want Villanelle to be compromised and your loyalties are stretched to breaking.
The strength of the writing is the two wonderful strong female characters the author has crafted. Normal political allegiances and national loyalties are strained as you fear the end of one of these women.
Despite this sense of dread the writing is captivating taking us across Europe and the world of spies and counter espionage was never so riveting.
A wonderful thrilling mystery. Fun, dark and life ending, a story that grabs your heart and chills your blood. Original and like all good books in this genre, not everything that happens is what it seems or done for the reasons professed. Who’d be a secret agent?
Rating: really liked it
Although I don't find the connection between Eve and Vilanelle as captivating as the show, the plot was a lot more exciting and I preferred the ending. Can't wait for the next installment!
Rating: really liked it
Decent continuation of - and even literary improvement on - the original story, although it doesn't complete the tale as I had expected - apparently there's a third book as well, (which our library doesn't have, so that may never happened - especially based on the many 1-2 star reviews which list that as the worst of the series).
As both this and the "Killing Eve" TV show came out in 2018, I'm not sure if the show is based on this book, or the book was actually written as a novelization of the show…in any case, these two books (and I imagine the third) only tell the story from the show's first season - and as the show is currently wrapping its fourth (and final) season, BBC AMERICA obviously took this much farther than Jennings' original creation.
PERSONAL NOTE: My main issue here was with the frequent lesbian sex - not that I'm a prude, but I'm always a bit uncomfortable when male writers write such scenes. While not overly graphic, as someone who doesn't have many lesbian friends - or at least ones I can openly discuss such things with - I never know if these are accurate and/or sensitive portrayals, or more a male fantasy of what such relationships are like. I mean, I'm even uncomfortable just writing this paragraph…
Oh, and one more thing: Also just watched HBO's "The Tourist," which had
another female cop whose husband/fiancé told her to either quit her job and be "a normal wife" or he was gone. Is this just a common literary device to open up female protagonists for romantic possibilities, or are men in general that selfish and unsupportive??
Rating: really liked it
actual rating: 3.5
As I continue to be absolutely amazed that they took this fairly run-of-the-mill assassin book and turned it into such an amazing TV series. I mean obviously focusing on two women in the spy/thriller genre does make this book more unique than a lot of things out there, but the writing style is still fairly awkward and you can definitely tell that this is a book about women written by a man. The only reason this gets a technical 3.5 stars from me is for the last chapter because HELLO! EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WANTED! I'm hoping that means the next book will be a bit more up my alley, but overall I think the show did well to deviate from the general plot and style of this and take a much more psychological path.
Rating: really liked it
Number two in this series. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed this one but, I kept thinking that the book is quite different from the series. Some of it is the same but, a lot isn’t. So, I think if I’d read the books first I might have enjoyed them more? Who knows it’s too late now.😊
Rating: really liked it
A great sequel to this book. Although a wished it to be a little bit longer. We follow Villanelle as she continues on her murdering journey across Europe, with Eve closing in on her trail.
The drama is fast paced and exciting, building up to a thrilling conclusion that leaves you waiting for the next instalment.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 ⭐️ this REALLY stepped UP from the first book 😳😳 im so excited for the third one 👀👀
Rating: really liked it
Quite simply: WOW! This was a great sequel to the first book, and I can't begin to explain how much fun I had flying through its pages.
Firstly, I was glad to find out more about 'The Twelve'. Even though everything is still kind of fuzzy, I feel like the puzzle is slowly taking shape. There were some really interesting revelations towards the end that were previously hinted in the first book and in the beginning of this one. I specially loved the political underlining of the plot, which was more prominent in this second book. The European far-right politics approach is quite interesting, and provided the most iconic kill so far (throw Adolf Hitler and the reincarnation of Eva Braun into the same mix and you've got yourself a pretty crazy scenario, that's all I'm saying).
Secondly, the twisted, obsessive relationship between the main characters was more intense and mesmerising in this book, and Eve's character development was also a good highlight. Seeing Eve getting to know a different side of her she didn't know existed leaves us wondering if in the next book she's going to fully and irreversibly embrace her dark side - the ending certainly makes a good case for it.
Thirdly, the plot twist at the end is absolutely amazing. It's not like it couldn't be anticipated, and I'm sure a lot of people saw it coming, but it took me by surprise. The TV show played with the idea, but it ended up going another way. Looking back, perhaps that's why I never seriously considered the possibility. Nevertheless, it was freaking brilliant and it added so much to the plot. I can't wait to see how it plays out in the next book.
Make no mistake, this book isn't a masterpiece, but it was one of those books that just kept me going like crazy, and I couldn't let go of it for too long - that's how captivating the narrative is.
In the end, I've decided to give it 5 stars. I really loved this book, and I simply couldn't bring myself to give it less.
Rating: really liked it
Continuing on with Luke Jennings’
Killing Eve series, the source material for the BBC’s television adaptation, No Tomorrow is a fun, quick spy read. There are some funny moments as Eve and Villanelle continue their cat and mouse tête-à-tête, as they circle in on one another. I will say, we do learn more about The Twelve in these books (a group that is frankly more of an afterthought in the tv series) though I do prefer Eve and Villanelle’s characterizations on the show. Overall, if you are a fan of the series, this material is worth reading.
Rating: really liked it
Wow, this was LOADS better than book one. It was funny and sassy, there was tension and genuine mystery.
I might even say I prefer the plot of this book to the direction the TV show has taken. I really liked how everything has been quite concise and there hasn't been a lot of extraneous characters.
The twists in this book were very well handled and I'm really looking forward to the next book!
