This latest installment of the Department Q novels will be released in the US on September 17, 2017. Detective Morck and the gang are back to solve a new murder that may be tied to a cold case from a decade earlier. This story interweaves long buried childhood trauma of one of the Department Q members. A solid addition to this series.

I gave this book three stars only because the translation was very choppy, and for the first time reading his books it was not that easy to follow the story. The story itself was very good as is usual This author.

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin for the eARC
This is my favorite Department Q book so far - it's a pity we probably have to wait at least another year for the next installment. This story gives us a great deal of insight into Rose, shining a light on her horrendous upbringing and the pain she has carried with her all her life. I'm not going to go into the details of the book as so many previous reviewers have done an excellent job of that already. The story has the other Department Q members extremely worried about Rose, but at the same time Carl and the guys are intrigued by the murder of an elderly woman, the M.O. being very similar to a cold case they're looking into. The higher ups upstairs are of course adamant Department Q stays out of their business, so some subterfuge and surreptitious sleuthing is the order of the day. I love the subtle humor of this series and got a real kick out of several characters: the social worker on the war path and 3 of her female clients, at once hilarious and diabolical. Great stuff! The different strands of the story come together brilliantly at the end. I'm also very curious to hear further about Rose, so can't wait for the next installment!

Jussi Adler-Olsen couldn't have written any other book. It was Roses turn. And what he did was amazing bringing so many killers currently into Roses life with out her knowing why. We find Rose was verbally abused by her father and was there when he died by a ton a steel being dropped on him. The story works this through.

Carl, Assad, and Gordon were at the same time working on cases that had similar issues making current murders make sense. This book flows so well that you don;t feel how the people get into situations that they do. This book was so well written that people that have been put off by prior books will want to read this one to follow Rose's illness through to the end. I liked this book as Jussi Adler-Olsen's best so far.

My thoughts on the book go live on the blog on Sept 27 2017 at 00.00 am gmt+2 and will show up on Goodreads sometime later.

Did Not Finish - DNF
In a Flutter: A lot of potential, but it just fell flat for me…
Fluttering Thoughts:
Worldbuilding: The Copenhagen setting seemed very promising, though the heavy emphasis on social services and how people on welfare were essentially useless and scammers kind of killed my mood, both as a topic, and as a message.
Characters: One of the things that made the characters fall flat for me was the number of them. While each of their situation had potential to move me, neither of them actually did. The focus changing between characters only made matters worse, as I didn’t connect with either and didn’t find it in me to care even one bit.
Plot: The story seemed interesting, but I got to about 20% into the book and by then things just started to happen – slow to start off would be something of an understatement. If I’d connected with either of the characters, maybe that might have been doable, but as it was, I didn’t find it in me to muster enough interest in how the different stories would entwine (and I’m sure they do, it’s obvious at this point). Up to this point, the pace of relevant events was slow to the point of torture for me.
Writing: Third person, past tense narrative, multi-POV. The writing style seemed choppy somehow. I think the original language and the author’s style is just one of those combos that don’t “translate” well into English. It just seemed off, and if the writing doesn’t flow well, it keeps popping me out of the story.
Curb Appeal: Nicely creepy cover, hooking blurb – it seemed like an interesting candidate for my mystery/thriller cravings.

All in all, things just didn’t work out between me and The Scarred Woman. I’m sure that the story in itself is interesting, but the pace and the writing style really worked against my enjoyment, and the characters fell flat for me.
I’m not sure if I do recommend it to someone in particular, as I didn’t get a sense of what its strong points are.

This seventh installment of the adventures of Department Q, the cold case division in Copenhagen’s police homicide department, is somewhat of a zany black comedy featuring a bunch of very bad women trying to kill one another. Their actions also seemed tied to an old, cold case, putting Department Q at odds with the current crimes group.

There is not so much emphasis in this book on Carl Mørck, the head of Department Q (in name, at least), nor of his assistant Assad, but much more focus on the psychological tribulations of his so-much-more than a secretary Rose. Interactions among the three of them, who have worked together now for seven years, are usually the highlight of the books, but in this story, we don’t get much of them together.

We do learn a great deal about Rose’s background, which turns out to have been pretty horrific. In addition, Rose accidentally gets caught up in the murder round-robin of the four “bad” protagonists. It is questionable whether she can come out of it alive.

Discussion: I am a big fan of the Detective Carl Mørck series but this one is not my favorite. This one is a bit too Coen-Brothers-ish for me. The lead-up to the dénouement had a good amount of tension, but this positive was offset by some plot elements that seemed quite unrealistic. (Or at least, I hope so.)

Evaluation: This thriller doesn’t live up to the quality of some of the earlier books, but I still like the characters enough to have enjoyed “visiting” with them again, and to look forward to seeing how the developments in this story "continue" down the road.