The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

(hb; 2011: first book in the Department Q series. Translated from the Danish by Lisa Hartford.)

From the inside flap

“The Keeper of Lost Causes, the first installment of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s. . . Department Q series, features the deeply flawed chief detective Carl Mørck, who used to be a good homicide detective─one of Copenhagen’s best. Then a bullet almost took his life. Two of his colleagues weren’t so lucky, and Carl, who didn’t draw his weapon, blames himself.

“So a promotion is the last thing Carl expects.

“But it all becomes clear when he sees his new office in the basement. Carl’s been selected to run Department Q, a new special investigation division that turns out to be a department of one. With a stack of Copenhagen’s coldest cases to keep him company. Carl has been put out to pasture. So he’s as surprised as anyone when a case actually captures his interest. A politician vanished without a trace five years earlier. The world assumes she’s dead. His colleagues snicker about the time he’s wasting. But Carl may have the last laugh and redeem himself in the process.

“Because she isn’t dead. . . yet.”

Review

Keeper is an entertaining, well-written, slick and hard-to-set-down police procedural/thriller with unique-for-the-genre elements (a Muslim janitor detective and villains who utilize a striking form of victimizing the woman they’ve kidnapped). The set-up’s easy to piece together─not a flaw, a feature: it’s the how and who that matters here. Great start to a series, this, one worth reading and owning.

Followed by The Absent One.

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The resulting 2013 Danish film, Department Q: The Keeper of Lost Causes, was released in Denmark on October 3, 2013. Mikkel Nørgaard directed the film, from a screenplay by Nikolaj Arcel.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas played Carl Mørck. Fares Fares played Hafez el-Assad. Sonja Richter played Merete Lyngaard.

Søren Pilmark played Marcus Jacobsen. Morton Kirkskov played Lars Bjørn. Per Scheel Krüger played Anker. Troels Lyby played Hardy Henningsen.

Mikkel Boe Følsgaard played Uffe Lyngaard. Patricia Schumann played Søs Norup. Rasmus Botoft played Tage Baggesen.