Horses...

Behind the scenes of KIlling Eve: Long Shot

One of the things I most love about being an author is the research. My new novel Killing Eve: Long Shot, coming out on the 1st November, drops Villanelle and Eve into the world of horse racing. I’ve loved horses all my life, but it was a particular joy to travel to Newmarket, the headquarters of British racing, to reconnect with the sport.

I made an early start with my photographer/writer daughter Laura, to see a friend’s horses exercising on Newmarket Heath. There are about three thousand horses in training in and around Newmarket, and Lucy Wadham has about thirty of them in her stable.

There’s a particular atmosphere to the Heath, with its grey dawns, wide skies, and long silences broken by the drumming of galloping hooves. Several scenes in the book take place here. Somehow, it seemed the perfect setting for our star-crossed heroines, and for a very special epiphany for Villanelle.

This week it’s the Tattersalls Yearling Sale, an annual auction in Newmarket at which breeders from all over Europe send the best of the year’s crop of untried colts and fillies. Prices for the most promising yearlings are staggeringly high. On Tuesday, a colt was sold for 3,700,000 guineas to Godolphin, the Maktoum family stable (horse sales are traditionally conducted in guineas, each worth £1.05, to allow for the auctioneer’s commission). Laura and I were at the sale on Wednesday. Bidding was fierce for another colt, and had reached 2,200,000 guineas when Laura lifted her phone. The auctioneer spotted the movement, and came within a hair’s breadth of registering the bid. A tricky moment, even if it was a beautiful colt.

Last week the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe was run at Longchamp, outside Paris. It’s Europe’s most prestigious race, and its most fiercely contested, and it forms the backdrop to the deadly climax of Killing Eve: Long Shot. I hope you enjoy the latest Killing Eve adventure as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Thrills and kills. Eve and Oxana. Horses

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