Victim 2117 by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

(hb; 2020: eighth book in the Department Q series. Translated from the Danish by William Frost.)

From the inside flap

“The newspaper refers to the body only as Victim 2117─the two thousand one hundred and seventeenth refugee to die in the Mediterranean Sea. But to three people, the unnamed victim is so much more, and the death sets off a chain of events that throws Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold case division led by Carl Mørck, into a deeply dangerous─and deeply personal─case. A case that not only reveals dark secrets about the past but has deadly implications about the future.

“For troubled Danish teen Alexander, whose identity is hidden behind his computer screen, the death of Victim 2117 becomes a symbol of everything he resents and the perfect excuse to unleash his murderous impulses in real life. For Ghaalib, one of the most brutal tormentors from Abu Ghraib─Saddam Hussein’s infamous prison─the death of Victim 2117 is the first step in a terrorist plot years in the making. And for Department Q’s Assad, Victim 2117 is a link to his buried past─and the family he assumed was long dead. . .”

 

Review

Caveat: (possible) mini-spoilers in this review.

Twelve years have passed since the happenings of The Keeper of Lost Causes, and two since the last entry, The Scarred Woman.

Victim is (thus far) my favorite Department Q novel, a pulse-thumping thriller with underlying potent pitch-black nastiness (e.g. mentioned rape, torture), mixed with equally shaded (sometimes humorous) twists and, eventually, a semblance of guarded hope. This eighth entry in the series also gives more writing space to the mentally fragile Rose Knudsen (still recovering from the traumas of The Scarred Woman) and Assad (and his mysterious past and family life)─in writing this, Adler-Olsen adds further emotional depth to his recurring and Victim-introduced characters, particularly Rose, Assad, and Lars Bjorn, the Homicide Chief for whom Carl Mørck bears much animus, much of it deserved. Even opportunistic reporter Joan Aiguader, new to the series, gets some understanding, though the main villains of Victim (Ghaalib and unrelated incel, Alexander) don’t get much sympathy (understandable, given their motivations and actions).

Victim, heartbreaking, cautiously hopeful and starkly realistic, is an excellent, burn-through, how-can-I-set-this-down read, one worth owning. Followed by The Shadow Murders, scheduled for publication on September 27, 2022.