The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

(pb; 2017: seventh book in the Department Q series. Translated from the Danish by William Frost.)

From the inside flap

“Detective Carl Mørck of Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold case division, meets his toughest challenge yet when the dark, troubled past of one of his team members collides with a sinister unsolved murder.

“In a Copenhagen park, a woman’s body is discovered. The case bears a striking resemblance to another unsolved murder investigation from more than a decade ago, but the connection between the two victims confounds the police. Across town, a group of young women are being hunted. The attacks seem random, but could these brutal acts of violence be related? Detective Carl Mørck is charged with solving the mystery.

“Back at headquarters, Carl and his team are under pressure to deliver results: failure to meet his supervisors’ expectations will mean the end of Department Q. Solving the case, however, is not their only concern. After an earlier breakdown, their colleague Rose [Knudsen], is still struggling to deal with the reemergence of her past─a past in which a terrible crime may have been committed. It is up to Carl and his team to uncove the dark and violent truth at the heart of Rose’s childhood, while working the cases that will define their careers before it is too late.”

 

Review

A social worker, sick of the slutty layabouts she is forced to deal with, decides to start offing a few of them. Meanwhile, Rose Knudsen, one of Department Q’s key investigators, has a multiple-personality crisis stemming from the events of The Hanging Girl, a crisis that that threatens not only her role within the department, but her continued breath.

This seventh Department Q novel is an especially emotional entry in the series, and like its preceding books, deftly juggles multiple cases─which may or may not be linked─and elements that come together in a satisfactory, well-paced and entertaining manner. Another great police procedural-hybrid-genre read, Scarred is worth owning. Followed by Victim 2117.