Book nine in the Department Q series, that I've had the pleasure to read right from the start.
This latest instalment sees the main characters developed further.
Whilst this book could potentially be read as a standalone, I can't help but think certain things would go over your head. The book revolves around an unsolved case from 1988 and the ending leaves the door wide open for a further book which will be number ten and allegedly the last in this series.
Much as I'm really looking forward to book ten, I'll miss Carl and the rest of Dept Q.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

The Shadow Murders is the ninth book in the Department Q series set in Denmark and expertly translated into English by William Frost. I have read some of the books in this series, and they definitely make more sense if you start at the beginning. Carl Mørck and his team are asked to investigate an unsolved case from 1988 which has a special significance for their boss Marcus. With very little to go on, and after a lot of repetitive investigative work, they uncover a series of deaths, murders made to look like accidents, that they believe to be the work of a serial killer.
Previously the entertaining banter between Rose, Assad and Carl was one of the highlights of this series, but here, especially in the first half of the book, they all seem a bit off kilter and Rose comes across as rude and insolent. Also, after the revelations in the previous book, the jokes about Assad’s use of idioms no longer seemed so funny when his family’s immigration status was under threat. This cleverly constructed plot shows Jussi Adler-Olsen’s skill as a writer; this investigation could have been tedious, but in his hands it was a gripping and tense page-turner, that kept me reading late into the night.
Apart from the prologue and some flashbacks, most of the story takes place towards the end of 2020 when covid restrictions are in place which makes the detectives’ job a bit more difficult. We get an insight into the mind of the killer and this helps us understand their twisted reasoning. To add to the tension, just when they are closing in on the location of the latest victim, Carl is suspected of having been involved in drug smuggling during the ‘nail gun murders’ case thirteen years before. The Shadow Murders ends on a cliffhanger, presumably to be solved in the next book, which is apparently also the last in the series. I look forward to reading it though will be sad to say goodbye to Carl, Assad and Rose. These stories also work well on the big screen. If you have not already seen the movies made from the first four books, I recommend them. Thanks to Quercus and NetGalley for a digital copy to review.

First of all, a huge shout out to Mr. Adler-Olsen for ruining the excellent Department Q film series ((2013-2018) by insisting on disbanding the entire cast and crew that audiences had grown to love and follow, and bringing in a new production team who picked deadwood actors, director and screenwriter for The Marco Effect (2021). The dismal box office numbers and reviews for The Marco Effect are proof that an author does not always know what is best for his characters and visual storytelling.

He singlehandedly destroyed an excellent connection between audience and Q stories that had been built over half a decade. I doubt many will watch the remaining 'upcoming' films.

Secondly, as excited as I was to get my hands on an ARC of 'The Shadow Murders', the story is too much of a talkathon and never really flies. It just is not as suspenseful as the previous ones.

The killers in the previous books (keeper of lost causes, purity of vengeance, even victim 2117) were relatable and one could feel some empathy for them, and understand the very real childhood trauma that got them to that killing point. The 'trauma' of the 'Shadow' mastermind as well as that of his/her partners is senseless and their motivations ridiculous. Plus, none of them has any personality. Everyone is robotic. And the plan and actions of the mastermind as the novel limps to a close also make no sense.

As for the victims, Mr. Adler-Olsen makes the entire Department Q as much of a moral police as the killer is. I did not see what was so horrendous about the victims that they deserved the punishments.

The deaths of Ragnhild, Tabitha and Pauline were shocking and the entire sequence of how Pauline meets her fate is spine-chilling. Anyone thinking this is a spoiler, needs to read the rest of 300 pages after these deaths have already occurred.

Getting to know how each member of Department Q is doing is always a pleasure, and now Morck is a bit more well-adjusted, Assad is going through the aftermath of having his family back in Denmark, Gordon is lonely but it is Rose who is short-changed in the novel. She comes across as a whining work wife of Morck's. Nothing is happening in her life, it seems.

But the elephant in the room is the shoddy investigative skill of Carl Morck, Assad, Rose and Gordon: the dismal manner in which they zero in on the mastermind and the manner in which he/she is finally reached is so boring and tedious. <spoiler> The female mastermind and her pack of vigilante followers sound great on paper but everything is so chaotically revealed and the investigation limps and crawls towards them.</spoiler>

I think Covid isolation caught up with Mr. Adler-Olsen. The idea is great, the execution, not so much

Plot twists are plenty, red herrings are scattered, leading to a perfect denouement and nicely tying up loose ends. Whilst the reader may well see the way in which the plot is headed this will in no way detract from the sheer reading pleasure of this sprightly tale

This may have been a different review had I read any previous books. As well as dealing with their current case, the team is dealing with the early days of corona and previous story lines affecting different members of the team. Having no knowledge of any of their backgrounds was for me, a definite disadvantage. I would advise reading the earlier books. Thanks to Netgalley.

WOW another fantastic addition to the Department Q series ! I love how the author has developed all the main characters personalities throughout the series with each book making you love them more !! Great storyline that had me gripped !

Carl and his team investigate a series of deaths where the murders all occur on the birthdays of tyrants, the victims are morally deficient and salt is left at the crime scene.

I found all the characters interesting and enjoyed the interaction between the varied personalities. The killer was very clever and I was surprised he/she managed to elude the police for such a long time. Great nail biting ending although it didn’t end as I expected for one person.

The formatting was a bit of a pain in the digital copy I received but I’m sure that it has been corrected for sale.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of the book in return for an honest review.

I was sent this book twice and have all given feedback on the first download.

I don't know how it was sent again?

Thank you

The Shadow Murders by Jussi Adler-Olsen is the Nineth in the acclaimed Department Q series by the Danish master of crime thrillers. The department, responsible for solving long-unsolved ‘cold’ cases, is known as much for the anarchistic ways of its members as its crime-solving prowess, and its latest case is as cold as they come. Marcus Jacobsen—Chief of Homicide of Copenhagen Police—is reminded of this case, a blast in an auto-repair shop that had killed several persons including a three-year-old boy thirty-two years ago, when he comes across the news of the bereaved mother’s recent suicide. Though the case was concluded as an accident, Marcus—a young detective at the time—had suspected otherwise but could not follow it up due to various reasons. Deeply affected by the mother’s heartbreak, he rereads the old case file and sees something odd that he feels to be deserving of a relook by Department Q.

The talented team, headed by Chief Inspector Carl Mørck and consisting of Rose Knudsen, Hafez el-Assad and Gordon Taylor—its youngest member, takes up the task and finds another case from the archives that, though occurred decades later and concluded as a suicide, shares the same odd feature with the first case. Convinced now that the commonality is no mere coincidence, the team redoubles is efforts and unearths more such cases that suggest of a long-running series of killings committed by one or more persons of extraordinary cunning and patience, with a twisted sense of justice. As a result of the team's unstinting hard-work amidst the restrictions posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic, and a bit of much-deserved luck, a sinister pattern into the murders starts to emerge that portends of another brutal killing within the coming few days. But the Department’s efforts towards stopping the killer(s) and saving the would-be victim get interrupted rudely when Carl is notified that he is being investigated by the narcotics team in connection with a thirteen-year-old case. Carl’s focus, as expected, is on preventing the murder and it becomes a race against time for Department Q to catch the ingenious killer(s) before it gets too late in more senses than one.

The Shadow Murders was my first taste of this acclaimed author’s work, and I greatly enjoyed it. The dark premise and the engrossing plot grip the reader right from the start and do not let go until the very end. The eccentric and highly resourceful team of Department Q is crafted to perfection and the interactions among its members are immensely amusing. The characterisation of the antagonist(s) and their chilling backstories too are impressively done. Jumping into this series at the nineth novel meant that I had some trouble making sense the multiple characters and their ongoing troubles from the past episodes, though it works well as a standalone. Unexpectedly, there is plenty of humour in this intense tale that succeeds at lightening the brooding atmosphere. The smooth translation by William Frost makes The Shadow Murders a difficult book to put down.

Apart from certain minor plausibility issues, I found The Shadow Murders to be a fantastic, riveting thriller and would recommend it to all fans of the genre. I am grateful to the publishers, Quercus Books, for providing me the ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

My thanks to Quercus Books for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Shadow Murders’ by Jussi Adler-Olsen. It was first published in Denmark in 2021 and translated from the Danish by William Frost.

This is the ninth and penultimate book in Adler-Olsen’s Dept Q series of police procedurals. I have read a number of the earlier books in the series, though each works fine as a standalone with background provided for new readers or as a reminder for returning ones.

Just brief plot details for context: Detective Carl Mørck is surprised when a case lands on his desk relating to the recent death of a 60-year-old woman. As Department Q deals with cold cases he doesn’t understand why his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, wants his input given that the cause of death as suicide seems clear. Yet Jacobsen is convinced that this was in fact a murder related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.

So Carl and his Dept Q team reluctantly begin to investigate and soon discover that every two years for over three decades there have been unusual deaths with connections that cannot be ignored. Against the backdrop of the pandemic’s restrictions, the team has a race against time before the next murder is committed. No further details to avoid spoilers.

Overall, I found ‘The Shadow Murders’ an intelligent and intriguing work of Scandinavian Noir with well realised characters and a complex plot with plenty of twists. While sad to hear that the series is ending, I look forward to Dept Q’s final case in due course.

A woman struck by lightning. A dangerous group who are intent on ridding the world of people who don’t meet their morally righteous beliefs, and Department Q. Already working on the outer edges of the police, Carl, Rose, Assad, and Gordon are now also hindered by the rapidly spreading Covid pandemic while trying to solve a particularly upsetting case from 1988, which they believe could be linked to a number of other murders in the following years, right up until the present day.

The Department Q novels are always dark and complex, both the crimes being investigated and the glimpses into the private lives of the team and The Shadow Murders is no exception. When investigating an old case at the request of his boss Marcus, Carl and the team begin to string together a number of cold cases where one particular element has been overlooked each time. The way these crimes were connected was so cleverly done, leaving just enough doubt that it was the work of the same killer that Department Q could only rely on themselves to hunt down the perpetrator before they struck again.

The tension certainly built up towards the end of the story, not helped by the fact that Carl is also faced with a misconduct investigation linked to the Nail Gun Case thirteen years earlier which has been haunting him ever since. As he tries to avoid arrest, the team are in a frantic race against time, trying desperately to save the next victim of their killer.

Another strong addition to the series, the story is set up perfectly to lead into Book 10 and the final conclusion.

I loved this book. The different characters are introduced with their own chapters told in their own words and you get a rounded view of what is going on. The blurry beginnings are sharpened as the book goes on and the pieces slowly fall into place and understanding of how the plot fits together appears, some great characters with some interesting takes on the external environment of Covid, immigration and police work. The ending left me wanting more.

Jussi Adler Olsen is inarguably Denmark’s most well recognised crime fiction writer with worldwide sales in excess of 30 million to date. The bulk of his novels so far have been set within the Department Q series which commenced with The Keeper Of Lost Causes (AKA Mercy), published in the English language in 2011.

One of the key mainstays of contemporary Scandinavian noir, as essential a cornerstone to the genre as Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander, Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole and Arnaldur Indridason’s Erlendur, Jussi Adler Olsen’s Department Q sees one of Denmark's best homicide detectives Carl Mørck investigate a series of cold cases with assistance from his team comprising of Assad, Rose and Gordon.

This series of book are dark and at times brutal, rich with social commentary, yet provide lighter elements such as strong team camaraderie and black humour. So far six of the series have been as feature length films in Danish with an intention for the full series to be adapted.

It was always Adler Olsen’s intention to complete 10 volumes in the Department Q series as per the tradition of the Martin Book novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. With The Shadow Murders the author appears on track to complete the series as planned in the next novel.

Simultaneous to the main crime story in each novel, the series has slowly unravelled the mystery of the Amager nail gun murders. Back in 2007 a surprise ambush led to the death of a police detective called Anker and the paralysing of another, Hardy. While he was only grazed by a bullet, the events of that day have cast a heavy shadow over Carl Mørck’s career. His actions on the day have left suspicions in the senior management which then saw Mørck sidelined to cold cases, while his own guilt at emerging virtually unscathed has also led to his subsequent care of Hardy. Which running as an undercurrent in the eight prior novels, a discovery during The Shadow Murders places not only his team’s investigation in jeopardy but also offers doubts over Mørck’s own future.

Following a pair of intriguing opening chapters set in the past, Carl Mørck is visited by Chief of Homecide Marcus Jacobsen. The death of a lady in her sixties by suicide has reminded Jacobsen of a case thirty years earlier in his career when a young baby boy was killed. At the time his mother was approaching a car repair shop which suddenly exploded. The blast killed the merchanics at work in addition to the young child. At the time the police were unable to establish a reason for the explosion nor a possible motive for a crime.

The one perplexing aspect to the case was a pile of table salt found close to the scene of the blast. This jigs something in Mørck’s memory and he asks Rose to check unsolved deaths and she unearths the death of a right wing politician who was believed to have comitted suicide in his car garage where salt was also found present. The team are then prompted to look for unsolved or unexplained deaths were salt was left on the scene, gradually uncovering a pattern over several decades.

As Carl and team start to interview those related to these cases, their questioning leads to a confrontation they are unaware of. At this point it is revealed to the reader who the main villan of the story is with some understanding of their motives.

With a long running series like Department Q there is a degree of formalisation. The historic cases tend to lead to the discovery of a current case as the police procedural evolves into a race against time thriller with lives at risk, including a member of the team. There is a degree of similarity with the imprisonment of Merete Lynggaard in the very first novel of the series. Other aspects familiar to the reader include Mørck’s continued attempts to smoke cigarettes in his office – which has become more troublesome now that the department has been located alongside the other investigating teams in the new police HQ in Copenhagen (also mentioned in Katrine Engberg’s The Harbour). Assad’s camel sayings and gramatical errors are still present and the continued interaction between the team also provides light spots contrasting with some of the more gruesome deaths in the storyline. It is to be expected that these elements would apply through this novel as they did through the earlier books in the series. The relocation of the department as well as restrictions in place during the Coronavirus epidemic do alter the team dynamic slightly.

Overall this is another cleverly crafted novel which has been well researched by the author, who consults members of the police force to ensure procedural accuracy. While I probably would not recommend The Shadow Murders as a starting place to read Jussi Adler Olsen: The Keeper Of Lost Causes (AKA Mercy) and The Absent One (AKA Disgrace) are hard to beat. Yet for anyone who has read at least a few of the novels, this book will definitely satisfy. Unlike the usual clear resolutions of earlier novels, The Shadow Murders ends on a knife-edge. With approximately 9 months delay between the Danish language edition of this book and the English language version, eyes will soon begin to turn to see when the final volume of Department Q will appear. Be sure to catch up before then.

We begin with an incident of several students being struck by lightning back in 1982. Only one student survives and mumbled something about the fact that the rest deserved to be struck by God.
In the present, Carl's boss Marcus asks Department Q to look into something for him. It has been bothering him since it happened and although it was wrote off as an accident, he's not convinced.
A repair shop blew up, killing the occupants and taking the life of a small child who was in a pushchair close by. The Mother has since committed suicide as she couldn't live without her child.
As Carl and the team investigate, it becomes clear that it is part of something much bigger. Meanwhile Carl is told
that he is being investigated by the drugs squad for things that happened around the time he was shot with his colleagues.
When the team put the puzzles pieces together, they find out that they only have a finite amount of time to find the next victim before the killer strikes again. With several things going against them, least of all Carl being suspended, it is a difficult case.
I loved this, the twists and turns kept me turning the pages.

This is a good series, complex and gripping and this was a good story, gripping and well plotted.
The complex plot was full of twists and surprised me, the characters are fleshed and the COVID is an added elements that add to suspence.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I would like to thank Netgalley and Quercus Books for an advance copy of The Shadow Murders, the ninth and penultimate novel to feature Department Q, Copenhagen Police’s cold case unit.

Carl Mørck and the team are asked to investigate an unsolved case from 1988, where a garage was blown up, after the recent suicide of the only survivor. They are none too keen but their digging uncovers a related death every two years since then. Many of these deaths have been written off as suicides or accidents but the timing suggests that they have discovered something big and with another death looming, or so they believe, time is of the essence.

I have read and loved most of the novels in this series, but I can’t say the same about The Shadow Murders. It is long and tortuous for very little reward, so it simply did not hold my attention and it took me days rather than my normal hours to finish. I never heard the siren call luring me back.

The idea behind the novel, one case leading to many more being uncovered, is excellent and how they are linked is unusual enough to make the reader ponder. There is also more esotericism in the dates of the murders and perhaps not esotericism in victim selection, but certainly enough to incite dialogue and more pondering. Unfortunately, the execution lets it down. The motive and participants are all identified by half way through so much of the mystery disappears, leaving the team to play catch up and save the day. I’m not against this hunt aspect in general, but it is meandering, lacks tension and is hijacked to a certain extent by a subplot arising from one of Carl’s old cases. It lacks the required intensity to make it a tense, engaging read.

The last few chapters are more eventful, culminating in a cliffhanger that sets up the final novel in the series, but there is no feeling of urgency or rather the team have urgency but can’t seem to pass it on to the reader.

The Shadow Murders
By Jussi Adler-Olsen

I have only recently discovered the Department Q series. I gave the first episode, "Mercy", 5 stars because of the excellent characterisations, the fast paced plot and the wonderfully irreverent narrative voice. The second in the series was a little disappointing after the thrill of the first, but I promised myself to continue in the series, which I will, and not feeling tied to reading a series in order ( I know, I'm an animal), I jumped at the chance to pick up an ARC of this, the ninth in the series.

It pains me to say that I didn't enjoy much about this episode. The characters felt dry and inanimate, the voice was jaded, the plot was improbable and I'm sorry to say that it feels a little like Adler-Olsen dialled this one in. I don't think it's just that I missed previous installments.

I understand that the tenth is the last in this series, so it's understandable that the author is holding back all the good stuff for the grand finale. With the cliff hanger ending there is enough there to want to see it to it's conclusion. In the meantime, I'll continue with the rest of the series.

Publication date: 27th September 2022
Thanks to #netgalley and #quercusbooks for the ARC

The Shadow Murders is the ninth book in the Department Q series by award-winning best-selling Danish author Jussi Adler Olsen. After attending the funeral of a suicide, Detective Inspector Carl Mørck’s boss, Marcus Jacobsen brings him a case for Department Q to review.

Burying sixty-year-old Maja Petersen, Marcus recalls the niggle about the case of a garage explosion that took five mechanics and Maja’s toddler son, Max, over thirty years earlier. The small, unexplained pile of table salt at the scene twigged a memory of another case with this same feature.

Mørck quickly sets his team to work tracking down that other case, while also examining anomalies in the garage case. A thorough examination of both files leads them to conclude that both were murders set up to look like accident or suicide.

They surmise there must be more cases and begin actively searching for others with the same salt feature, and when they look deeper, they discover that the common elements of the cases form a pattern: what look like ritual killings have apparently been going on for over three decades.

The victims, too, exhibit a common characteristic: all are morally deficient. Whoever is knocking them off is clever and imaginative, often relating their execution method to their source of notoriety.

With COVID cases, staff quarantined and another lockdown, Department Q find themselves assigned to a “hot” case: the murder of a woman charged with the very public murder of a thief, a case which, bizarrely, turns out to have links to their cold case.

Alternate narratives that start in 1982 and are intermittently inserted between chapters from Mørck and his team’s 2020 perspective describe a group of vengeful women, vigilantes or street avengers targeting societal decay.

With its quirky team members: Rose Knudsen, ever-vocal with her loud criticism and complaint, Gordon Taylor, enthusiastic but still wet-behind-the-ears, and Assad, with his (possibly intentional) Manglish; Department Q interactions are usually entertaining and often blackly funny.

While Assad is distracted by problems with gaining asylum for his family, until the narcs turn up, Mørck is unaware of an investigation into allegations against him and his partners, Hardy Henningsen and Anker Høyer involving murder, cocaine and cash from their thirteen-year-old Nail Gun Case. This necessitates the team getting creative to avoid Mørck’s arrest while they try to prevent the death of the next victim.

There’s plenty of good detective work tracking down some truly nasty characters in this, the penultimate instalment of the Department Q series, and the cliff-hanger ending telegraphs the topic of the final book that will take the reader back to before the first book. Gripping Scandi noir
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and the publisher.

It seems I have missed an episode or two in this exciting series, but no matter, this was an awesome story! It does, however, reference quite an incident in an earlier book (which I did read) referred to as the ‘nail gun murders’ where Inspector Carl Morck, head of Department Q (the cold case unit) of the Copenhagen police and his partner, Hardy, were shot and another officer died. Sadly I don’t remember the detail. The relevant thing is that the case (now over 10 years ago) has come back to haunt Morck while he and his team - comprising the wonderful Assad, the feisty Rose and newcomer, the keen as mustard Gordon are trying to stop one of the most deadly serial killers Denmark has ever seen. Or not seen as the links are only now being made.

Unfortunately, with my right hand out of action, I couldn’t take notes but I think it all kicked off when a body was found and, in the vicinity, a pile of salt. This tweaked some memories and the team are looking for any other murders which involve a pile of salt. Weird huh? It is something many detectives would overlook but Morck’s team establish a pattern of sorts and can see that the killer has been active for over 20 years.

Using the pattern they determine that another murder is due to occur soon but they have no idea who or where this will take place. The tension is palpable as the deadline approaches and Morck has to avoid being arrested over the nail gun case. These guys are so dedicated to solving this and saving the victim they haven’t even identified yet although they eventually do. It goes down to the wire, every minute counts, my nerves are still recovering!

In the interests of fairness I need to mention that it ends on a cliff hanger so I will be very keen to read the next book. Many thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Books for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

This is a murder mystery story, and police procedural, with a sub-plot about police corruption. It is set during Covid lockdown in Denmark. I haven't read the earlier books in the series, so I am not sure if I am missing something in the story regarding Hardy, Carl and a previous case. The characters didn't have much personality, only Assad was distinctive. The serial killer plot itself seems quite improbable with the villains, and some of the murder methods.