'The Killing' is the twistiest murder mystery I have ever read. Just when I thought, 'Oh! It was ...' the plot takes another spiraling u-turn down a rabbit hole that somehow our favorite jaded TV woman detective, Sarah Lund, continues to follow.

Ok, yes, the author, David Hewson, cheats by withholding key pieces of evidence, which when revealed, had me groaning in amused amazement at how Hewson managed to root out yet another tangle from the story, but I was entertained, gentle reader! This book is a quite a rollercoaster ride down into secret and unmapped tunnels!
I wonder if Hewson has ever tried knitting? I think he'd be good at it.

This version of 'The Killing' is very good despite the fact it could have possibly fallen to the degradation photographers see when a photograph is a copy of a copy of a copy, called generation loss, or it could have suffered from the issues of what researchers and reconstructionists of old documents often must suss out from palimpsests. It stands up on its on strong legs. So, gentle reader, if you saw the original Danish Broadcasting Corporation TV show, or the BBC show, or the American AMC reboot with Seattle, Washington State detectives instead of the original Danish actors as detectives, this book is still another strong reimagining of the original screenplay. It has lost nothing from the transformation of screenplay to novel. Also, Hewson gave it a different ending, although the bones of the original story are in place: the characters of the obsessed Sarah Lund and her brash ambitious new partner, the two politicians fighting a bloody combat for the same elective office and their immoral support staff, and of course, the hapless beautiful murder victim and her ex-criminal family, looking for justice.

The delight of this dark mystery is mostly in how it plays out, so this is as far as I intend to reveal the plot. I recommend reading this book first before seeing the two screenplay versions. It is that good.

Omg!! I can’t believe I had this book sitting on my shelves for so long!!!
I’ve been obsessed with the show (both Danish and English versions) for a few years now, but the book is even better! If that’s even possible. I’ll catch my breath and come up with a more coherent review soon.
All I’ll say for now is that you can easily fly through this book through a weekend, even though it’s a brick, that’s how addictive it is!

This is an easy read, especially if you have seen the show. Other reviewers have mentioned the repetitive descriptions - and I agree - they do jar.

Despite being well written it does read like a script from the audio described for the partially sighted version of the show.

It is worth persevering with though as the pay off is very rewarding - it does take effort to get there though.

Just didn't get on with the writing style, and the book is so big I was a bit intimidated.

This is a real rollercoaster of a book with a protagonist who you want to both applaud and yell at simultaneously. Sarah Lund is a deeply flawed, highly driven woman, investigating a case involving many other deeply flawed people. I have not read a lot of Nordic crime, but the selection of authors I have read to get a feel for the genre all write incredibly unlikeable characters who you eventually warm to in most cases (there were a couple where I just couldn't like the protagonist, no matter how hard I tried to find a redeeming feature).

Reading the book prompted me to watch the TV series. The writing in both is sparse. I'm not a fan of sentence fragments and the book has a LOT. I thought it worked for the speech, which came across as naturalistic (borne out by the TV series), but, for me, it made the narration stilted. As a result, I found that instead of reading great chunks of the book in one go, as I would usually, I was only reading a few pages here and there. However, that said, what the book does overall is put you off balance and instil unease, making you feel much as some of the characters would be feeling. There is very little in the way of flowing text that you can settle comfortably into; instead, you have a barrage of text that, at times, reads almost like bullet points, as if you are seeing into the minds of the characters and their thoughts are being printed directly onto the page. Once I had that image, I understood what the book was trying to do and enjoyed it far more as a result - enough to re-read it a few weeks later. One thing particularly impressed me - David Hewson does a fantastic job of making you feel cold while you are reading. The colour palette of the book echoes that of the TV series - blues, greys, black, white - all cold and stark and reflecting many of the familial and working relationships being depicted. You find yourself clinging to the little warmth there is in the story, but there isn't a great deal and where it does appear, it is impure for a variety of reasons, almost as though no one is allowed to be truly happy. It makes you really consider the concept of true happiness after a while!

In spite of greatly enjoying both the book and, later, the TV series, I did feel that the book was a little over-long. There were too many instances (for me) where the case seemed to have been satisfactorily concluded, only for Lund to subsequently make a connection which led to more investigation. I have no doubt that some cases do pan out that way in real life, but I found myself thinking, "Oh, not again," in the last third of the book. It did help me to sympathise with Brix, Lund's superior officer, though, as I can imagine him thinking something very similar!

The thing which I enjoyed the most about this was the scope it gave me for discussing it with my husband. He hasn't read the book, but was following my foray into Nordic Noir and was keen to watch the TV series with me. It prompted some really good discussions, particularly about characterisation and we both avidly binge-watched the first series. I would definitely recommend this book. It's not an easy read at first, but once I got into it, I really enjoyed the way it challenged me as a reader. I'd also recommend watching the TV series alongside it!

I'm actually a little disappointed with the book. Not that it's bad. I felt it did not have the same effect in me that the series on which it is based on did. And this is the main problem with novelization of a movie or a television series. If I had read this book before I watched the series, may be I would have like it more.

I was a fan of the original Forbrydelsen/The Killing TV series, so I thought I'd like the book as well and I didn't like it, I LOVED it! It's well written and keeps with the same storyline as the original programme. Also loved The Killing II. Looking forward to getting The Killing III when I can.