Guilt

I'm probably an outlier. The cases interest me, but I'm not sure I'll continue with the series because I so dislike the main character. Not just that he hasn't grown on me, I genuinely find him quite off-putting. He's not good at detecting, his assistants do almost all the footwork, and largely make the breakthroughs as well! And he's sort of a creep, and sometimes a bully, and unprofessional, and sexist and racist, and lazy, and has a self-centered mindset, and just is SO not who I want to spend hours of my life inside the head of. A *single* instance in these 4 books he surprised me with an intention that was truly good of him and went above expectations. But the rest of the time he barely scrapes by at being decent. Assad is a great show more character, very clever and likable. But Carl is the main character, and if he hasn't grown or improved by 4 books in, then he's probably just not going to. If he wasn't good with people but was top notch at his job, or if he wasn't that bright but really cared about people, or *something* to offset him just being a sort of schmuck, I might continue on, but it's just like 90% disappointment.

Side note- The repetitive references to all the characters having some sort of bowel sickness, or snot literally pouring out of them, was overly extensive, and seemed like it was going for cheap potty humor or something. The book is 500 pages and did not need like 30 detailed descriptions of their sick... In general, all the books so far should have been trimmed down.
How many times can Carl have good reason to be wary of someone, then make a phone call or something where he, entirely unnecessarily, *turns his back on them* (and is promptly attacked)- before they take away his badge for incompetence? People would normally learn from this mistake the first time. Either he's a halfwit, or the author just keeps phoning in the setup for the climactic scene by having Carl totally drop the ball each time. show less

Department Q of the Copenhagen Police Department is headed up by Carl Mørck, who is still stuck in the basement working cold case files with his two assistants: Assad and Rose. Mørck is a rough-around-the-edges investigator whose personality in part has resulted in his exile. Assad is still mysterious and funny. No one really knows where he lives and it seems that he may be residing at work. Rose's multiple personalities make her extremely difficult to work with.

Rose has just found them a new cold case to work on involving the disappearance of several people on the same day in 1987. The link between the missing persons appears to be Nete Hermansen, an elderly woman with a disturbing past. Between 1923 and 1961, a number of women in show more Denmark who were deemed genetically inferior were institutionalized on an island called Sprogø. There they were subjected to forced abortions and sterilizations. Also connected to the investigation is a politician named Curt Wad, a retired physician turned politician who is reminiscent of Joseph Mengele. He's the head of the Purity Party and now on the verge of becoming a major force in Danish politics. Nete blames six people for the awful things she suffered in her life. In 1987 she wrote a letter to each of the six with a promise to make them wealthy. During the course of the investigation the reader will find out why.

The best part of this series is the interaction between Carl and those around him, especially Assad. As in previous books in this series, we continue to explore Carl's personal life. And what a horror his personal life is. He's trying to keep from screwing up his relationship with Mona, his ex-therapist. His long-estranged wife finally wants a divorce, his loser stepson is still living with him, along with Hardy, Carl's paralyzed former partner, and lodger Morton (and now Morton's new boyfriend).

As always Jussi Adler-Olsen delivers a great original mystery and I've enjoyed each and every one of them. This one took a little longer to get into and refers to events that happened in the first book of the series. I would recommend anyone interested in this series start with the first one: The Keeper of Lost Causes. show less

4.5 stars

Just gets better & better

There is a list I keep of authors whose books I wait for & pick up without a second thought. Jussi Adler-Olsen is on it & I'm sorely tempted to learn Danish just so I can read them faster.
This is another great instalment to the series. But if you're new to this author, start at the beginning. Like Ian Rankin's "John Rebus" or Jo Nesbo's "Harry Hole", each novel builds on the returning characters & their histories, creating a richer experience for faithful fans.
Once again we find the gang in Department Q juggling cold cases. There's never a shortage and as usual, Assad & Rose are more enthusiastic about getting started than Carl.
Carl has a lot on his mind. An old colleague is trying to rope him into show more looking at an assault on his sister, new clues have been found in one of Carl's previous cases, his paralyzed friend Hardy has recovered some startling memories & his estranged wife suddenly wants a divorce. But when Rose begins to tell the tale of a missing madam from 23 years ago, he can't help but be intrigued.
Back then, several people went missing from Copenhagen over the period of a few days: escort agency owner Rita Neilson, itinerant fisherman Viggo Mogensen, auxiliary nurse Gitte Charles, recluse Tag Hermansen & lawyer Philip Norvig. No traces were ever found. Coincidence or is there a common thread?
While investigating, Carl & Assad cross paths with Curt Wad. He's a retired physician, now fronting the Purity Party. A radical right wing group with a chilling (hidden) agenda, they are this close to becoming a legitimate political party. But most Danes are not aware the party's platform is based on eugenics. Their powerful members have arranged abortions & sterilization of women deemed unsuitable for decades. As the story progresses, a horrific history unfolds, revealing the network of lawyers, nurses, judges, police officers & doctors who select candidates to be committed to asylums or "care' homes prior to medical procedures done without consent. Anyone asking questions is quietly discouraged by one of the party's field agents.
The plot is extremely complex with hidden ties & secrets between a large group who first met in the 1950-60's. In alternating chapters, we learn what happened to Rita, Nete (a woman with a heartbreaking story pivotal to the plot) & the others. Their histories are at times sad, terrifying & oddly hopeful but always compelling. Wad's character makes the blood run cold as we read about a life spent dealing with "inferior" people, inviting comparison with another supporter of such atrocities.
Assad in particular is affected by the case, giving us a glimpse of his shadowy past before he came to work with Carl. And Rose....well, with her issues, no doubt she would have been what Wad called a "suitable candidate" for correction.
There are many returning peripheral characters that provide side stories but at its' heart is our trio of intrepid misfits. With each book, you can't help but get more attached to them. These are well written, fully realized people you care about as they navigate their personal & professional lives. The dialogue is sharp & often heated but infused with wry humour. Carl is perpetually cranky (except when he's with the lovely Mona), Rose is smart & increasingly bossy and Assad frequently provides comic relief with his continued mangling of the Danish language.
As the book rushes to a tense conclusion, none of them will escape uninjured. The author does a great job of doling out clues to the reader, distracting us with red herrings as we try to piece it all together. Even in the last few pages, there is a clever twist I can honestly say I never saw coming.
Like the two well known series listed at the beginning, this one has it all. So if you're partial to smart, intricately plotted police procedurals with original & compelling characters, look no further. show less

Life is hectic for Detective Carl Mørck: new evidence has emerged in the old case that sent Carl to Department Q; his cousin has made accusations which make Carl look like an accomplice in his uncle's murder; his girlfriend's daughter has taken an immediate dislike to him; everyone in the police headquarter has come down with an atrocious stomach-flu; and when a cold case about a missing woman appears at the department, it takes Assad and Rose, to Carl's consternation, only a short while to find a connection with four more missing people, a Magdalene home for wayward girls, and a white supremacy movement to purify Denmark.

This is another gruesome installment in the series, but less explicitly gory than the others - this time the show more tension comes from the extremely uncomfortable subject matter. But, more importantly, the humor that went somewhat awry in the third book is back to its normal self in this one, and Assad and Rose are really shining, especially when they team up against Carl. We get a little bit more insight into Rose's life and some of her actions actually make sense, but Assad manages to get even more mysterious - I wonder if we'll ever find out who or what he really is. This may be my favorite installment yet, since even Carl gets to win a few of his battles and isn't as grouchy as he normally is, and the plot line is absolutely riveting with a bizarre, but not implausible twist at the end. I couldn't possibly recommend this series more than I already do to people who don't mind a little disturbing creepiness to go with their mystery. show less

I listened to this one in the car. If you do this - be warned - three women in the book are named Nete (Pronounced Nita), Rita, and Gitta (rhymes with the other two)...so but for the first letter - the names sound identical - which took me a bit to get comfortable with and caused some confusion in the beginning.
Enjoyed it - Assad is fleshed out a teensy bit more, and Rose's character gets more back story. Half of these is - for me, anyway - is the enjoyment of the characters. The other half is the mystery. Enjoyed this one so much that I immediately jumped into the next book in the series when I finished this one.

The Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen is a fine work of Nordic noir fiction. It's Adler-Olsen's fourth book featuring Carl Morck of the Copenhagen Police Department and his two assistants, Assad and Rose.

The Purity Party has received enough favourable votes to stand as an independent political party in the country's next election. Among its leaders are well-respected businessmen, lawyers, doctors, and so forth, all of them bigots who believe in and participate in the forced sterilization of those with low iQs, immigrant women with large families; all of them focused on racial purity. Women are being given abortions that they do not consent to. All of this blows up when Department Q's archives reveal the disappearance of several show more party members all within one week in 1987. Now neither the Purity Party nor Carl & co. are safe from danger.

I'd have given the book five stars had it not been for the multitude of narrow escapes that occur throughout the book. I've noticed this tendency for repeats of violent action in Adler-Olsen's works before, particularly in his stand-alone novel The Alphabet House, which lurches from fist fight to fist fight.

That aside, this was an engrossing read, and I'm going to read the next Department Q novel next; it's called The Marco Effect show less

Jussi Adler-Olsen’s new Department Q mystery weaves together a dark episode in Denmark’s past with a tale of long-delayed revenge.
In 1985, Nete Rosen had put behind her the horrors of her childhood and youth that climaxed with her becoming a ward of the state and being forcibly sterilized. But an encounter with Curt Wad, the doctor who started the process that almost destroyed her, ruins the happiness she’d found and almost kills her. Two years later, physically recovered but still emotionally devastated, Nete returns to her maiden name of Hermansen and creates a list of seven names. They are the people most responsible for the crimes committed against her when she was a teenager.
In 2010, Detective Carl Morck and his assistants show more – Rose, who occasionally takes on one of her sisters’ personalities, and Assad, whose life is an enigma – are given the cold case of a brothel owner who disappeared in 1987. As they dig, they find a startling pattern of six disappearances at the same time that are somehow tied to Dr. Curt Wad.
While in his 90’s, Wad is still vital and is on the verge of launching his Right-wing Purity Party as a force in Danish politics. Beneath that cover, though, Wad has waged a lifelong campaign against those he considers inferiors, and controls a network of true believers who preform unnecessary abortions and sterilizations on immigrants or low-class women. Department Q deals with cold cases that require special handling, and no case fits that better than the 1987 disappearances. Carl, Rose and Assad learn that there are people who want to prevent the investigation by any means, including murdering the detectives.
Adler-Olson weaves together the stories of Carl’s investigation, Nete’s revenge, and her youth in the 1950s, telling the concurrently in a way that both increases the novel’s poignancy and horror. It draws you in and grabs your attention, and won’t let go even after you turn the final page.

Reviewed by David Ingram for Suspense Magazine show less