Villanelle and Eve are carrying damp laundry through the streets of St. Petersburg and somehow, this is the most upsetting thing they’ve done. Villanelle, using her birth name Oxana, is living with Eve. Yes — living with. Sharing a flat. Doing chores. Arguing over dryer usage. Lying low in a city that feels like it's watching them back. They’ve been in hiding ever since the coup, tucked behind fake names and fake jobs, pretending to be stable. It’s not working.
Eve is quietly translating documents for her remote gig. Villanelle is enrolled in a linguistics program, but the only thing she’s really studying is how long she can fake being ordinary. The boredom is rotting her from the inside out. The intimacy between them is slipping. And right on cue — Villanelle gets handed an engraved invitation to a nightclub by two strangers who say they’re with The Twelve.
They’re not. She knows it. But she goes anyway. Because the stillness is unbearable. Because she misses the thrill. Because Eve’s going a little cold and this detour might snap her back into herself. Max and Maria, the discount-spy duo behind the invite, try to recruit her back into the world of high-end murder and mystery. But they’re sloppy. They don’t have the shine. And Villanelle sees the lie in their eyes before they even open their mouths.
Then she gets home and Eve is gone.
No note. No warning. No suitcase. Just absence. Villanelle doesn’t panic — she calculates. She’s halfway into action when The Twelve get to her first. They break the news: Max and Maria? Not theirs. MI6. Playing dress-up with fake intel and a nightclub invite. The Twelve want her to play along while they figure out what the hell MI6 actually wants with her. It’s a chess game, and they’ve just handed her the queen.
So she goes to London. Lets the charade breathe. Smiles through the lies. For about five minutes.
Then she kills Max. No ceremony, no hesitation. Just a message delivered in blood. She corners Maria next — who melts down so spectacularly she rebrands herself “Balice” mid-crisis — and forces her to take her to Eve. And where is Eve? Hiding out in a safe house. With Niko.
Yes. Still married. Still delusional. Still clinging to the fantasy that this is fixable, like his wife didn’t flee the country and shack up with someone who treats murder like foreplay.
Eve’s staring down charges for aiding a foreign intelligence service — the kind that come with a courtroom, a prison cell, and absolutely no conjugal visits. Villanelle agrees to work with Balice — not out of loyalty, but leverage. Along the way, there’s a brief little fling that clearly means a lot more to Balice than it ever does to Villanelle.
Because Villanelle’s already playing the long game. She’s not interested in saving MI6 — she’s interested in saving Eve. And she’s willing to trade exactly what Balice wants to make that happen. When the deal finally goes down, it’s not clean. It’s not civil.
There’s a bridge. There’s a storm of bullets. There’s blood, confusion, and yes — the river. Again. Because nothing says “reunion” for this couple quite like semi-drowning and mutual trauma. I won’t spoil who gets hit, but someone does, and the emotional fallout is just as devastating as the physical.
Part II of the book is where things really light up. The Twelve are back and backing Villanelle again. She’s got money, support, and a new mission. Balice is still lurking in the background like a spy-shaped anxiety attack. And the assignment? Unhinged. Surreal. Featuring a literal giant rat and somehow managing to stay high-stakes and compelling the whole way through. No one needed that rat to exist. And yet, it’s kind of perfect. The history baked into the mission is wild in the best way — half spycraft, half fairytale, and so over-the-top it feels like Villanelle manifested it just to entertain herself. It’s messy, it’s theatrical, and she is thriving.
3.5 stars. Not for polish. Not for realism. But because it hits. The tone, the chaos, the emotional co-dependency masquerading as partnership — it all slaps. This isn’t about redemption. It’s about two people who should never have found each other and now can’t survive without each other. Killing Eve: Resurrection doesn’t promise peace. It promises fallout. And I devoured it.
Whodunity Award: For a Rat, Russian history, and a Relationship in One Mission Flat
Huge thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the ARC — and for enabling my continued spiral into spy-fueled chaos.