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Erbarmen: Der erste Fall für Carl…
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Erbarmen: Der erste Fall für Carl Mørck, Sonderdezernat Q (original 2007; edition 2011)

by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Hannes Thiess (Übersetzer)

Series: Department Q (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
3,6142153,473 (3.94)322
Chief detective Carl Mørck, recovering from what he thought was a career-destroying gunshot wound, is relegated to cold cases and becomes immersed in the five-year disappearance of a politician.
Member:Guido.K
Title:Erbarmen: Der erste Fall für Carl Mørck, Sonderdezernat Q
Authors:Jussi Adler-Olsen
Other authors:Hannes Thiess (Übersetzer)
Info:dtv (2011), Taschenbuch, 432 Seiten
Collections:Your library, Currently reading
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (2007)

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» See also 322 mentions

English (173)  Dutch (16)  German (8)  Spanish (5)  Danish (4)  Catalan (2)  French (2)  Greek (1)  Swedish (1)  Finnish (1)  Italian (1)  All languages (214)
Showing 1-5 of 173 (next | show all)
I don’t want to give too much away.
It is the story of a psychologically compromised detective and his mysterious middle eastern immigrant partner/ secretary/janitor.They study cold cases.
The author went back and forth between when the cold case happened and the present day, weaving a tale of revenge and building tension throughout.
It’s strange because it is pretty violent and harrowing, but I felt a little more humanity than a lot of the Nordic Noir tends to offer. ( )
  cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |
This was a fun read in the vein of Agatha Christie's "A Mirror Crack'd." Although the middle chapters of the book telegraphed the ending, I enjoyed the setting and the characters. I look forward to reading the rest of the Q series from Adler-Olsen. ( )
  mattbonner | Feb 25, 2024 |
Detective Carl Mørck survives a shooting that kills one his partners and paralyzes the others. A curmudgeon that no one else in the department likes, he finds himself "promoted" to lead the new Division Q funded by a national government initiative to solve cold cases. His superiors see to it that most of the money earmarked for Division Q goes into the general police funding, while Carl gets a basement office and one assistant, a charming Syrian refugee named Hafez al-Assad.

Carl is drawn to the case of a rising star in the Parliament, Merete Lynggaard, who disappeared on a ferry ride to Berlin. The police have decided she died by suicide or an accidental fall from the ship, but Carl suspects there's more to the story. During Merete's career in politics she had been very private of her personal life. Despite the gossip papers efforts to reveal a hidden romance, in reality she spent her off time caring for her younger brother Uffe. As a child, Merete survived a car crash that killed her parents and cause Uffe to be developmentally disabled and unable to speak. This crash will play an important part in the story in other ways. The reality is that she's been abducted and kept in a pressure chamber for five years by her cruel captors.

Carl is an "old-fashioned" type of detective, and not a very likable character but more pitiable than loathsome. Assad adds a lot of warmth and humor and is my favorite part of the book. I found the motivations of the villains to be implausible with no explanation other than they are "crazy" as Adler-Olsen keeps reminding us. But crazy people don't make compelling antagonists. The scenes with Merete in captivity are very unsettling and it reads almost like torture porn. There's copaganda too, as Carl and Assad are only able to save the day by breaking the rules. But there is humanity in this story to that keeps it engaging right up to the hopeful, but definitively not happy, ending. ( )
  Othemts | Feb 13, 2024 |
I definitely enjoyed the film adaption more but that may have been because I watched it before I read this. While I was reading this I kept on comparing it to the film. I did enjoy getting the victim's perspective from the book which helped me understand her more as a character. I was not really a fan of how Carl acts in the book in certain parts and much prefer how he is portrayed in the film. ( )
  Fortunesdearest | Feb 1, 2024 |
This book is more of a 4.7, not quite a 5, but still pretty decent. I like feeling brilliant, so figuring out the solution to the case within the first 100 pages is nice in that respect, but waiting for 200 pages while the detective flounders around not asking the right questions gets annoying after a while. Perhaps there was a bit too much foreshadowing, or maybe Morck is just not as great a detective as I want him to be. I already dislike Carl Morck from the other book I've read in this series- Morck seems like a rather sexist jerk to me, not someone I am all that likely to relate to or care about. His sexist streak comes out less in this book than in the other one I read, at least, but I still dislike him. He's a jerk to Assad, too, especially considering how helpful Assad is. I liked the plot though, and I enjoy reading crime/murder mysteries from other countries. ( )
  JBarringer | Dec 15, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 173 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (18 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Jussi Adler-Olsenprimary authorall editionscalculated
Christiansen, MoniqueTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
D'Avino, Maria ValeriaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Davies, ErikNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hartford, LisaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Hübschmann, UlrikeNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Herson-Macarel, EricNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Huttunen, KatriinaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jacobsen, LeifTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Koch, WolframNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Krogstad, ErikTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lehrmann, GithaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mendizabal, Juan MariTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Pacey, StevenNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sauk, StefanNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Szöllősi, AdrienneTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Thiess, HannesTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Vries, Kor deTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Winther-Larsen, HelgeNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Dedicated to Hanne Adler-Olsen.
Without her, the well would run dry.
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She scratched her fingertips on the smooth walls until they bled, and pounded her fists on the thick panes until she could no longer feel her hands.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Chief detective Carl Mørck, recovering from what he thought was a career-destroying gunshot wound, is relegated to cold cases and becomes immersed in the five-year disappearance of a politician.

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Book description
Jussi Adler-Olsen is Denmark's premier crime writer. His books routinely top the bestseller lists in northern Europe, and he's won just about every Nordic crime-writing award, including the prestigious Glass Key Award — also won by Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Jo Nesbo. Now he's introduced to America.

The Keeper of Lost Causes, the first installment of 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 investigations division that turns out to be a department of one. With a stack of Copenhagen's coldest cases to keep him company, Carl's been put out to pasture. So he's as surprised as anyone when a case actually captures his interest. A missing 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.

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Penguin Australia

2 editions of this book were published by Penguin Australia.

Editions: 0141399961, 0718156889

 

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