Just as sharp and exciting as the TV show. I love Villanelle as a central character. At times naive, funny and always deadly, I love following her story. 

The writing is witty, wry and perfectly paced  I honestly can't wait to read more!

I might be late to the Killing Eve party but I’m really glad I turned up! It’s certainly action packed and fast paced which kept me turning the pages. I haven’t enjoyed a book of this genre since Salander in the Millennium series. I’ve already downloaded the other two books and can’t wait to watch the TV series. Thank you NetGalley and John Murray Press for letting me read and review this book.

Killing Eve!  I love the show and finally got around to reading the book the show is based on and...well...that's not as riveting as the show is it?  This seems a little generic and the writing is heavy-handed - apparently Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the best reason the show works...c'est la vie, i'm interested in trying the next one out and, hopefully, the writing improves.  C-

Great read, enjoyed this having watched the tv adaptation. Good crime drama with humour, interesting characters and different to the usual.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

though its not quite like the series killing eve,its a good reminder of the first series....thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and cant wait to get to book 2 in this series

well worth a read and written in a style that i like easy to understand and flows really well

Having seen the tv drama I was keen to read the book. The characters backgrounds are more detailed in this book. A great book that kept me interested throughout.

Being a fan of "Killing Eve" I was keen to read the book the TV show is based on. 

There are many similarities and it's easy to imagine the TV doubles in the story. We hear a lot about Villanelle's backstory and the mysterious organisation "The Twelve" whom she works for and so get to understand her a lot better. We remember how MI5 operative Eve meets her husband Nikos and her life before her obsession with assasin Villanelle takes over....

It's a brilliant read, fast paced and thrilling and #2 is nestling on my kindle right now. I'll be picking up the third one too.  It's a great story in it's own right and I really recommend it.

I haven't seen the TV series Killing Eve yet but can see that this book would make a fast paced show. There's a lot of sex and violence and worldwide locations. 
The book does end abruptly and the writing could be better. The female characters especially aren't very complex. It is a good short read though without being too taxing on the brain.

I'm not normally one to see the movie before I read the book, however after the phenomenon of Killing Eve I had to check out the books that inspired the series. 

The books follow fairly much in the same vein as the show. Eve is a secret service agent who recognises a trend in a series of killings and believes a female serial killer is behind it, soon she is put on a task force to track down the woman we know as 'Villanelle'. 

If you enjoyed the series this is a fun return to that, much of the cast and basic plot lines are the same. However, it is easy to see the smaller flaws where the show improved the text. On occasion, the way in which female characters are written can be a little bit clumsy and stereotypical, an aspect the show makes huge efforts to avoid. 

However, it is not entirely fair to only hold the book up against its adaptation. It is entertaining in it's own right, and carries humour and thrills. It was fun enough to read and I would definitely think about picking up the sequel.

Just starting reading this book after watching the series, I hope as they say books are better than the movie.

This was very dark reading, as character Villanelle is more vulnerable as we can read her thoughts and find out how she thinks, Ave difficult to sympathy with but understand why she is doing this.
As I finish this book , I find my self wanted to read more. It’s was fast pace as good as the tv series .

Full of action and mystery. Chapters told between the two main female leads with plenty of room open for further books

I loved this book more than the TV series - so much to savour!.  Villanelle is a complex character, one that you would not wish to meet, although compelling to read about. I'm now reading other work by Luke Jennings. Thank you, Net Galley, for the advance copy.

I now realise that it's quite difficult to review a book objectively after seeing a TV show and that show being done so well it becomes an iconic success. The characters are forever bonded with the actors who play them and you can't help but picture them as you're reading the book.

So that said, I enjoyed the first adventure of Villanelle and it zips along at a cracking pace.  The novel is short and skimps on depth of character and very occasionally there are some clunky sentences which pull you up short, either awkwardly expressed or unnecessary explanations, as most of the prose is very smooth.

But Jodie Comer has done the books a grand favour in making a character who does dastardly deeds, so very likeable, quirky and entertaining; although to be fair, her outline in the book is just asking to be grabbed with both hands, and she did!  Sandra Oh and Kim Bodnia (perhaps the best laugh ever to be put on screen) making so much more of the characters as well.

A great, quick little read for a first installment and it does make you want to read more.  I'm just not sure if that feeling would have been quite so strong if I hadn't had Jodie's portrayal in my head.  Impossible to say.

I have watched the TV series, and loved it, and wanted to see how the book compared.
I was not disappointed.  It had the same build up of characters and intensity as the TV series.
I only finished the book yesterday and already have the second one lined up to read.

excellent keeps you reading even when you feel you must stop. Two very different characters that make you want to laugh and cry with them. Tv series and books often differ but this one  makes sense of any misunderstanding along the way.

As a massive fan of the BBC America adaptation, I could not wait to get my hands on the source material. Villanelle is a brilliant character and I really enjoyed getting a little more of her backstory. Can't wait to read the next book.

This is a short but satisfying thriller with an unexpected cliffhanger!  Villanelle is an excellent character and I really enjoyed reading more of her back story.

She is the perfect assassin.

A Russian orphan, saved from the death penalty for the brutal revenge she took on her gangster father's killers.

Ruthlessly trained. Given a new life. New names, new faces - whichever fits.

Her paymasters call themselves The Twelve. But she knows nothing of them. Konstantin is the man who saved her and the one she answers to.

She is Villanelle. Without conscience. Without guilt. Without weakness.

Eve Polastri is the woman who hunts her. MI5, until one error of judgment costs her everything.

Then stopping a ruthless assassin becomes more than her job. It becomes personal.

Having heard of the series but not seen it, I really wanted to read the book first and I’m glad I did.
It’s a well written, high octane thriller that has great character descriptions and goes into the background of Villanelle which I found explained to some extent why she was the way she was.
Villanelle was definitely the star of the novel.
Eve needs a bit more time spent on her as she was a determined character but didn’t stand out quite as much.
The setting of the story was always edge of your seat and the twists and turns plenty.
I enjoyed it and will read the second book when I can.

As a big fan of Killing Eve, the hit BBC series based on Jenning’s novels, I was keen to read the story that inspired them. Like the series, there are two main protagonists: Villanelle, the Russian born assassin working for a shadowy organisation, The Twelve, and Eve Polastri, an MI5 analyst who becomes obsessed with bringing her to justice. 

Obviously, there are many similarities between the series and book, but there are also some marked differences. Unlike the series (I’m yet to see the latest season, so don’t know if this is still the case), it is much more explicit in the novel that the organisation, The Twelve, that Villanelle works for is not a state organ, that in fact the Russian State also don’t know who they are. While Jennings doesn’t go massively into detail as to who The Twelve are (perhaps he does in later novels) he does go into more detail than the television series, which hardly touches on her employers. This first book also goes into a lot more detail about Villanelle’s background and the training she received after her recruitment.  

But perhaps the biggest difference between the novel and the series is that the novel is far less comic than the television show. Whereas the BBC series is an over the top black comedy, the actor Jodie Comer’s Villanelle often dressed in outrageous or glamorous frocks, the novels are much straighter, much more akin to other thrillers of the spy/assassin genre. This is not a criticism, in many ways reading this novel reminded me of one of the high octane thrillers that did so well recently, such as Terry Haye’s novel, I Am Pilgrim.

There’s a second novel in the series, No Tomorrow, which I definitely intend to read, and a third on the way (Killing Eve: Endgame, with a publication date in 2020). My understanding is that the first two were written prior to the TV adaptation, so it will be interesting to see how Jennings wraps up his story in light of its successful transformation to the small screen.

This is a great read, albeit a more straightforward take on the genre than its TV adaptation. That said, it would be a pity if fans of the genre didn’t read it on that basis, for despite the fact that it doesn’t have the quirky fun of the TV adaptation, this is a compelling and accomplished thriller.

I read this after watching the TV series and I did not disappoint. Although it is obviously the same story I found that reading it only enriched it for me. There is a lot more detail in the book - more background into the central characters. I would highly recommend this even if you have seen the TV series.