Tantalizing and electrifying. Marvelous suspense read.

THE SCARRED WOMAN: A Department Q Novel
Jussi Adler-Olsen; translated by William Frost
Dutton
ISBN 978-0525954958
Hardcover
Thriller

What a joy it is to have a new Department Q novel in hand. THE SCARRED WOMAN is the seventh in the series about this quirky four member Cold Case squad with the Copenhagen Police Department. Q gets no respect at all from its peers and superiors, its continuing success notwithstanding, and the prickly personality of Detective Carl Morck --- diplomacy is not one of his strong suits --- does not help matters, nor do the respective personality traits of the enigmatic Assad, damaged Rose, and understated Gordon, the other three members of the department. The focus of THE SCARRED WOMAN --- a multifaceted title, that one --- is on Rose, however, as Department Q takes on one of its most intriguing and challenging cases to date, a matter that can only be solved by the team investigating a very current case on the down low.

THE SCARRED WOMAN runs along two different timelines, those being April and May 2016 in the present and the closing weeks of 1995 in the past. The present is the primary focus, and is told from a number of different points of view as things jump back and forth in the month of May. Author Jussi Adler-Olsen never loses the reader however, and it is a tribute to his talent as well as that of translator William Frost that things never get confusing or convoluted in this rather complex yet riveting plot. The current murder concerns that of an elderly woman whose body is found abandoned in a city park. A number of elements of the killing --- including the method --- bear a striking similarity to a murder which took place over a decade in the past. Q makes the connection, but Morck’s superiors stand in the way of the team, its past successes notwithstanding, taking on the responsibility of a current case. Worse, the team is once again threatened with being disbanded. Morck has other distractions as well, given that Rose, who is damaged on several levels, seems to be rapidly decompensating. Meanwhile, a series of hit and run incidents involving young women as victims are plaguing the city. The reader is made privy to what is occurring, and why, and how, from inception to execution (in every sense). What is truly fascinating is how Adler-Olsen takes this seemingly random and secondary storyline and brings it into Department Q’s investigation even as it is Rose who winds up with a crucial clue that is key to solving all of the mysteries, past and present. And solved they are, though at some cost.

All of the Department Q books contain dark humor, high satire, social commentary --- not always politically correct --- and grand villains, with THE SCARRED WOMAN being no exception. Adler-Olsen, in fact, kicks it up a notch, somehow, when such a task might seem impossible given the grand accomplishments of the previous volumes in the canon. If there is a downside --- and there isn’t, not really --- it is that I might have liked a bit more of Assad --- mysterious, all-knowing, malapropistic Assad --- in THE SCARRED WOMAN. He is not, however, absent by any means and he has had his share of presence in more than one volume in the past. As for Morck, the nominal head of Department Q...THE SCARRED WOMAN is noteworthy for its conclusion, in which it appears that Morck will get exactly what he wants. Or maybe something like it. Those who read THE SCARRED WOMAN will most assuredly be waiting impatiently for the next installment in the series in order to find out. Recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2017, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Scarred Woman is the seventh in Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q series featuring Carl Mørck and his growing squad of cold case detectives. The first, The Keeper of Lost Causes, was one of the most memorable and disturbing mysteries I have ever read. Adler-Olsen followed up with several other good installments in the series. The squad grew, adding Assad, Rose, and Gordon. There were the usual bureaucratic squabbled and conflicts with superiors that seem to be a requisite trope in mystery series. No one wants a series where the detective is the departmental golden boy.

In The Scarred Woman, Adler-Olsen has constructed a very complex collection of interconnected crimes and threads. Most personally pressing for Department Q is the storyline featuring Rose who is suffering a psychic break. They suspect it was triggered by an earlier case with a person who reminded Rose too much of her abusive father. They believe investigating her past might offer guidance in how to help her.

Meanwhile, they are urged to investigate an old murder of a schoolteacher – unsolved for many years that might connect to a recent murder of an old woman because so few people are killed by being hit on the head. Meanwhile, a bitter social worker is thinking about murdering her clients, women she perceives as parasitic leeches draining society. And then there are the parasitic leeches on her list who have some criminal plans of their own. It’s quite a mixture of villains and villainy and sadly, it turned out to be quite a mess.



Not that I don’t admire the complexity of it all. Adler-Olsen successfully brought together five separate cases into one Grand Guignol of the macabre. However, the people are so one-dimensional that they seem like caricatures. The social worker is a pathetic old, bitter woman who resents her clients and learning she may die, sets out to kill them with maniacal glee. She has not one redeeming value. The young women are beyond vapid and are written to produce disgust. We are not allowed to care about them. They are so extremely, deliberately parasitic that they seem to have been conjured straight out of Paul Ryan’s objectivist fever dreams.

But sadly, as someone who really likes the Department Q series, the main characters seem parodies of themselves. The amusing misapprehended idioms that Assad frequently fractures are too frequent. I suppose there is an implicit recognition of how much that quirk is over-exploited when Assad asserts he is sick of Mørck’s constant corrections. However, for me, what was once a dash of humor leavening the grim stories was overdone to the point of parody. Mørck’s somewhat madcap detecting persona and conflicts were equally hyperbolic. At moments I was reminded of Janwillem van der Wetering’s Grijpstra and De Gier whose mysteries are hilarifying. (I know it’s not a word, bear with me.) However, that madcap sensibility was appropriate because the ethos of the stories was very different. Department Q’s mysteries involve horrific crimes, horrible people, and are often very gruesome. Adler-Olsen usually balances the mix of comic and macabre more artfully, but this time he parodied himself.

So yes, The Scarred Woman is disappointing, but in comparison to the rest of his series. It is still an engaging, complex mystery that satisfies. There is ample suspense and moments when you will want to shout at the detectives and yes, the suspense is occasionally fraught. I will be eager to read the next in the series because I hope this is a singular disappointment in a very good collection of books.

The Scarred Woman was released today. I received an advance e-galley through NetGalley.

The Scarred Woman at Penguin Random House
Jussi Adler-Olsen author site

Jussi Adler-Olsen's "The Scarred Woman," translated capably from the Danish by William Frost, is the story of females in crisis. One has had a break with reality. Another decides to shed her staid public persona and punish slothful young ladies who sponge off hard-working taxpayers. A third manipulates her friends into helping her commit a crime. Others who appear in this complicated suspense novel have been keeping sinister secrets for years. Little do they suspect that the truth has a way of emerging at the most inconvenient times.

Danish detective Carl Mørck is still in his basement office, running Department Q with his assistant, the mysterious, intelligent, and good-natured Assad. Rose Knudsen, whom Carl and Assad have long valued for her organizational skills and insight, is not well, and her future appears uncertain. As a result of her late father's vicious bullying, she has low self-esteem and major mental health issues. Also in need of psychiatric intervention is Anne-Line Svendsen, a miserable and lonely social services administrator who is burned out after years of dealing with shiftless, selfish, and ungrateful clients.

The saving grace of "The Scarred Woman," is the inimitable Carl Mørck, a savvy detective who does not suffer fools gladly, but is compassionate and generous towards his friends. Carl tangles with arrogant higher-ups who want to shut down his department, and tries to evade the irritating producer of a television reality show. "The Scarred Woman" has drama, grim humor, pathos, and a high body count. In spite of occasional lighthearted passages, this is a dispiriting portrayal of grasping, arrogant, and vengeful individuals who are devoid of empathy and lack a moral compass. Carl, Assad, and their colleague, Gordon Taylor, do everything in their power to help Rose recover. In addition, they work tirelessly to solve a series of puzzling cases. Readers who are initially confused by events that seem unrelated will be enlightened when all the disparate threads come together in the action-packed finale.

I always enjoy the cases but Carl, Assad and Rose continue to make these books standout. In this outing, Rose is struggling badly. The events from The Hanging Girl still weight heavily on Rose and she has a significant mental break. Adler-Olsen handles it beautifully, capturing both her despair and hope. Too often, authors handle mental illness where it's either a joke or a cootie infestation but not Adler-Olsen. He is unflinchingly honest and tender. I love this series and highly recommend it to mystery lovers.

Very disappointing this time around. I have been a fan for ages, but this installment is a major dud. The characters are hollow, the pace is off, and the dialog is stilted and stodgy. I suspect the author is passed his sell-by date.

This is the seventh novel of the Department Q series. Carl Mørck, head of the cold case department, sets out to find a connection between the recent murder of an elderly woman and the similar murder of a young teacher a decade earlier. Then there are a series of hit-and-run murders targeting young women, some of whom turn out to be connected to these two victims. All of these cases have Carl and his two partners, Assad and Gordon, working overtime, especially when their assistant, Rose Knudsen, ends up in a psychiatric hospital because of major mental health problems.

As this plot summary suggests, the plot is very complex with various connections between the cases being investigated. There’s a very tangled web that needs to be unraveled. Sometimes there are almost too many connections; for instance, Rose’s relationship with one woman seems too coincidental.

The quirky cast of characters I met in the previous books continues to keep my interest. There’s good-hearted but cantankerous Carl, mysterious Assad, and heart-broken Gordon. In many ways, of course, this is Rose’s book. Throughout the series, there have been hints that Rose has a fragile psyche; in this book, the full explanation is given for her behaviour in the past. The author should be commended for his sensitive treatment of mental illness.

Rose is a scarred woman, but she is certainly not the only one; it could be said that there is a Danish det kolde bord of irreparably wounded women, some of whom have become morally bankrupt if not downright murderous. Admirable female characters are a minority in this book. Of course murderers may also be victims; it is for this reason that I found myself having sympathy for one killer.

One of the many women we come to know is Anneli, a social worker, who early in the book reveals that she thinks people who are non-contributing members of society and take advantage of social services should be punished. The motives for her actions are understandable, but her constant laughter turns her into a comic figure: she “laughed manically and unashamedly” and “She laughed at how well things were going” and she was “laughing at the thought” and “Anneli couldn’t help laughing insanely at how perfect her plan was” and “Anneli laughed. It seemed like she had gotten away with this” and “Never before had she laughed so much with relief” and “Am I going crazy? she thought and started to laugh again. It was all so comical and fantastic” and “She laughed at the thought” and “She burst out laughing at the thought” and “She laughed again, holding the half-empty glass” and “She lay on her side on the sofa, doubled up with laughter cramps.”

As in the other books in the series, there are humourous touches. The banter between the members of the department continues. Assad’s misuse of idiomatic expressions is one source of amusement. A scene involving a car thief’s first attempt at stealing a vehicle is hilarious. Comic relief is needed because there is a lot of murder and mayhem throughout.

The novel is narrated in third person from multiple points of view including Carl’s and that of both victims and perpetrators. At times the reader has to guess at the identity of a killer and at other times he/she knows who the killer is and wonders when/how the killer will be apprehended. At the beginning, there are switches in time period that can be confusing; the book moves from April 26 to May 13 to May 2 to May 11. Fortunately, chronological order becomes the norm as the narrative progresses.

I would definitely recommend that readers begin at the beginning of the series. The previous six books describe the personalities of the recurring characters, explain the relationships among the various characters, and outline the specific issues faced by individuals. For example, if one knows the details of Carl and Mona’s relationship, Carl’s uncomfortable encounters with Mona in this book are understandable. As well, the reason for Carl’s having a paraplegic roommate is explained in the earlier books. I read somewhere that three more books are planned for this series. Presumably one of them will focus on Assad’s background.

I am looking forward to the next Department Q installment. If you have not already discovered this Danish mystery series, do check it out, beginning with The Keeper of Lost Causes.

Note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

I have long enjoyed Scandinavian mysteries, and I cracked open The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler-Olsen with unabashed anticipation. Multiple narrators tell this police-procedural tale. Between the changes in narrator and the abrupt segues, the start of the book is jumbled chaos. A few chapters in, the book starts to flow. The myriad storylines are eventually tied together as the story is reaching its zenith.

I haven’t read any of Mr. Adler-Olsen’s prior books, so I wasn’t as invested in the members of Copenhagen’s cold case division--Department Q. However, I did find their collegial banter and compassion engaging. They clearly care deeply for their damaged co-worker, Rose, and their tireless efforts to help her were touching. Carl and Assad are pretty funny. They clearly have worked together for a while and know each other well. Mr. Adler-Olsen’s wry humor is evident in their banter. The two bicker like an old, married couple in one scene and share guffaws over mocking the media in another scene. They are the only likeable characters in this book.

The Scarred Woman centers on a group of women who are not obviously tied together. There is the aforementioned Rose, a policewoman who is struggling with demons from her past. It appears that she is “the scarred woman”. There is Anne-Line Svendsen, a misunderstood, burnt-out social worker who rightly judges most of her cases as lazy, entitled Gen X’s who would rather live on the dole than put in an honest day of work. These “model citizens” are depicted as having no education, skills or work ethic, and each feels like they are above the manual labor jobs for which they are qualified. To be fair to Anne-Line, not all her cases are parasites, but Denise, Michelle and Jazmine epitomize the bottom-dwellers of their society. Denise is particularly despicable as she also embodies the self-absorbed righteousness of her family’s historic Nazi beliefs. None of these characters are likeable or sympathetic. There is no reason to feel grief for any of the victims as each one of them is essentially receiving their karmic justice.

The plot is evenly paced. There is story tension, but I didn’t find it gripping or compelling. This was partially due to the unredeemable characters. However, the number of social issues the author felt the need to include in his story also impacts the story tension and pace. The author touches on welfare fraud, entitlement, lack of work ethic, Nazism, emotional abuse, envy and greed, adultery, bureaucracy within police departments, and insufficient support of government agencies. All these themes and messages made the reading like wading through gelatin at times. Overall a decent read, but I did not find it to be overly compelling. 3.5 stars

I always look forward to the latest Department Q novel and did enjoy this. We get to learn quite a bit about Rose' s background but Assad remains a mystery. I thought the social commentary about the abuse of the welfare system was a bit heavy handed.

After I discovered, along with the rest of the world, and read the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy by Steig Larsson, I scarfed down every Scandinavian mystery/thriller I could find. I didn't care if I'd never heard of the author, experience was teaching me that the books were sometimes good and often great. I don't remember reading a poor one.

I was excited to discover two books by an author I'd not heard of, Jussi Adler-Olsen, a Dane, at a neighborhood book sale. They were both in practically perfect condition. Either the owner prior to me took extraordinarily good care of paperbacks or s/he was put off by the length of these mysteries. Her loss.

The two books I picked up happened to be the first two books in the series about Department Q. One certainly doesn't have to read them in order--there are seven in all including The Scarred Woman--but I have loved being witness to the evolution of the main characters and Department Q itself. The first book details the beginning of Department Q, a demotion for Carl Morck who, although an excellent detective, is surly and on the outs with many of his colleagues. Department Q is created,, in the bowels of the basement for him to work on cold cases. He is given an assistant, Assad, a Muslim Dane, with a mysterious and dubious history. The two attempt to solve unsolvable cases.

As the series moves on, Carl and Assad get another member of the team, Rose. Rose is as off beat as the other two and the interactions between the three of them provide a levity much needed to balance the gruesome Nordic mystery and murders.

By the seventh book, years have passed, Carl and his team have become famous for solving hideous past crimes, they have saved each others' lives and there is a strong if unspoken affection between all the team members that keeps the reader involved in these lengthy books. A fourth member has joined the team. Gordon has a serious crush on Rose and, as The Scarred Woman moves along, is traumatized by the fact that something is seriously emotionally wrong with Rose. The Chief of Police has retired and he, too, is falling apart after the death of his wife. However, a recent death looks to him like a murder as it is so similar to one seventeen years ago that he worked on. He is intrigued and asked Carl to look into it.

Meanwhile, another story of three beautiful but lazy, entitled girls, determined to marry rich men while living off their lies to their Social Worker, seems completely unrelated. Nothing happens without a reason and nothing happens quickly. For me, this is part of the charm of this series. We think along with Carl and Assad and sometimes the murderer. There are many, many threads going at the same time much as life and the juggling of priorities and time are not unfamiliar to most of us. We are amused by the repartee between Carl and Assad especially and astounded by the many sides of Rose. The books are long, 500 to 600 or more pages but Adler-Olsen is such a good writer and so adapt at bringing the reader along far a wonderful ride that one feels we're reading about distant friends. I never wanted any of the books to end.

I've always wondered how authors like Ruth Rendall, Adler-Olsen and a number of the Scandinavian writers come up with people and crimes that are pure evil. Some authors spend time making sure the reader understands that the murderer is a victim also, hostage to his or her past. I wouldn't call Adler-Olsen' book psychological thrillers as a number have now been labeled. He entertains us, he scares us and, often, he provides background to explain some of the horror but doesn't dwell on it. As someone who worked in a psychological profession, I can say that he has definitely done his research. But then to create these masterful jigsaw puzzles from his research and extraordinary mind is true literary genius to me. One of the books says he is the No 1 bestselling author in Denmark. I didn't know that as I'd never heard of him before this summer but I don't doubt it.

If you are a true mystery/thriller fan and also like good writing, read this book and oh by the way, read the other five books also so that you became part of Department Q!.

This is the seventh in the Department Q series police procedurals by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen. Department Q is Copenhagen’s cold cases division and in the Scarred Woman they are juggling five cases. A recent homicide is similar to an unsolved one from more than ten years ago. Young ne’er-do-well women are victims of a hit and run driver. There has been a robbery at a local club and a murder nearby. Finally, the team is grappling with the dark history and instability of one of their own.

Denmark is often identified as one of the happiest countries in the world. Adler-Olsen focuses on the decidedly seedier side of this society in this Scandinavian Noir tale. He writes with a sense of humor, irony, and social commentary.

I have not read the previous novels in this series and I think that was a disadvantage. Some of the recurring minor characters were not that well developed; I felt as though I intruded in the middle of some of their lives and was left wondering who they were and their relationship to each other. I did enjoy the members of Department Q, particularly the endearing immigrant Assad who hasn’t quite got a grip on the local language and keeps misspeaking idioms.

I thought the story was a bit convoluted with a rush toward the ending. Despite that, I enjoyed the book and would like to go back and read the prior ones as well as read future works by Adler-Olsen. If you enjoy Nordic Noir, do read this!

I love the Department Q series, from the beginning to The Scarred Woman, the latest installment. Always good to drop down into the basement and check in on Carl, Assad, and Rose. And see what odd ball case they are working. This time it’s three cases. Some old, some new, all convoluted and confusing. Someone is killing young women with hit and run tactics, changing cars, and staying off the radar. The only known fact is that the driver is a woman. But who and why? The young women victims are themselves involved in various crimes—robberies, even murder. And the long-ago death of Rose’s father in an industrial accident, might not have been an accident. Was he killed by Rose’s hand or was someone else involved? As Carl and Assad wade through the cases, and meet great resistance within the department, they must do so without Rose, who has suffered a psychiatric meltdown—one that has been coming for many years. Another great story in a wonderful series.


DP Lyle, award-winning author of the Jake Longly, Samantha Cody, and Dub Walker thriller series

In Denmark, Carl and Department Q find that one of their cold cases intersects with a current case. A caseworker for the state with a revenge fantasy run amok, a colleague with a horrific hidden past, and an unsolved murder all coincide in this thriller from Nordic Noir author Jussi-Adler-Olsen.

Each of Adler-Olsen's previous Dept. Q books have been engrossing, and I looked forward to The Scarred Woman. However, I found myself starting and stopping a half dozen times before getting into the novel enough to finish it.

Even after I finally got engaged enough to finish the book, the novel never invoked the same fondness for the characters that I've had in all of the previous books, nor did I find the plot(s) as compelling.

All of the women were disturbed, shallow,self-indulgent, and violent. Rose isn't shallow, but deeply disturbed, and I felt strangely distant from her character.

Why didn't this one satisfy me? For many reasons, but mostly because it felt so different in character and plot development from earlier books. Obviously, this is my own opinion and others may not have the same perception.

Read in July; blog review scheduled for 9/7/17

NetGalley/Penguin Group

Police Procedural. Sept. 19, 2017. Print version: 480 pages

If you like the Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo, you will like this detective series by Danish writer Adler-Olsen. Do you have to read them in order? Nope. However, if you are into character development, you might want to as both the main and the peripheral recurring characters are complex and dynamic, showing tremendous growth throughout the series. In his latest mystery, a variety of threads become strung together under the stewardship of Department Q, where lost causes and old cases are solved: a grandfather with a disturbing Nazi past, a police assistant whose struggles with mental health overtakes Dept. Q, an angry social worker, some selfish young women with questionable values, and a police commission that wants to break up the department. Per usual, Head Detective Carl Morck is his usual curmudgeonly self as he teases and berates everyone around him. Syrian sidekick Assad provides levity with his constant misuse of language, while Gordon desperately tries to save Rose, the department secretary, from the demons of her childhood. It is definitely a page-turner, but give it about forty pages for all the threads to start to weave some sense together. This series is also a great listen for those long road trips as the narrator is money.

I had trouble with this one to be honest. I think because I came into it way into the series I didn't 'get' the characters because I didn't know their backgrounds from previous novels in the series.
I also found the multiple secondary characters and multiple investigations to be a bit hard to follow!
That being said, I will definitely be reading the series from the beginning as I do enjoy European crime novels!

Set in present day Copenhagen, this is a complicated police procedural with a collection of very interesting characters and crimes. Detective Carl Mørck runs Department Q, a small unit "in the basement" that concentrates on cold cases. In this 7th book of the series, he and his team are investigating what may be linked homicides while wrestling with a heartbreaking situation involving Rose, one of their own.

An old woman found with her head bashed in. A string of hit-and-run accidents affecting young females on the public dole. An old murder, never solved, of a teacher. A robbery. A shooting in an alley -- are these all related? I was torn between almost cheering on a cold-blooded killer and wanting justice for the crimes. Great three-dimensional characterization.

The first comment I must put out there is that I had not read any of the previous books in the series so I was totally lost as to the characters, their relationship to each other, and their individual issues and problems. The narrative also meanders through many different points of view and has flashbacks so that all was quite confusing. The story seemed to take quite some time to set up and then to come together, but the last 1/4 of the book was so absorbing that I raced to the end. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I read the previous books and I'd recommend doing that.

I'm a fan of nordic noir and Scandinavian crime fiction so this was right up my alley and there's obviously a lot of backstory I'd missed with the Department Q team. I will have to catch up one day and I'd definitely read another by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton Penguin Group for a digital arc of this novel.

Definitely for fans of the Nordic suspense novels, this one placed in Denmark. The author was very adroit in making this reader wonder what in the world was going to happen next. The characters are not cardboard cutouts and the tension builds to such a level that I found myself saying aloud, Look in that room! You didn't look in that room! I might have felt a little foolish except the detectives really did need to look in that room.

Department Q is the cold case unit of the Copenhagen police force. They have already seen themselves moved down to the basement and squished into space much smaller than they need. The word has come down from the top level: show some results or the unit will be disbanded. The group is hampered by the types of cases they investigate normally, but also by the unusual behavior of one of their own team. Then a recent case seems to be connected with a cold case Department Q is investigating. From there the body count starts to climb.

The translation of this novel is very good and the feeling of being in Denmark is strong and vibrant. I really enjoy reading novels set in places I've not been fortunate enough to visit and this one made me see Denmark as well as the living conditions and feelings of the characters portrayed. I enjoyed this one very much, but be prepared to turn the pages way past your normal bedtime.

When the murder of an elderly woman in a Copenhagen park is linked to a similar unsolved murder from the past Detective Carl Mørck and the rest of his crew in Department Q take on the case. As they further investigate, the murder takes all sorts of strange turns, and on top of it all, Rose is suffering from a mental breakdown again AND a murderous hit-and-run driver is on the loose. With Rose out of commission, Carl and Assad must solve the cases and try to save Rose.
I love Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q novels and was excited for the release of his seventh, The Scarred Woman. As always the book is filled with interesting characters, some heinous crimes, and clever investigating from Carl and his team. However, I felt like there were too many coincidences in the cases and investigations as by the end of the book, Department Q is working on five cases all at once. It made the plot too busy as there was too much going on. In spite of that, The Scarred Woman is still a great, but maybe not the greatest addition, to the Department Q series. 3.5 stars.