The Marco Effect

June 30, 2014
In bestseller Adler-Olsen’s engrossing fifth Department Q mystery (after 2013’s The Purity of Vengeance), a high-level manager of a financially troubled Copenhagen bank embezzles funds intended for an African village’s relief. Meanwhile, a clever 15-year-old gypsy, Marco Jameson, desperately wants to escape from a life in which he’s forced to beg and steal by his tyrannical uncle, Zola, head of the local gypsy clan. On the night Marco attempts to flee, he discovers a buried corpse, much to Zola’s displeasure. Afraid that Marco’s discovery may be revealed to the police, the members of Zola’s clan decide to track Marco down. When Det. Insp. Carl Mørck, the head of Department Q, part of Copenhagen’s homicide division, resurrects a cold case, Marco crosses paths with Mørck and his colleagues. The resulting investigation takes all of them on a roller coaster ride through Copenhagen’s seedy underbelly. The interplay of personalities in the police department adds color.

August 1, 2014
A Danish banking scam whose tentacles extend to Cameroon spells trouble for Department Q's Carl Morck and a young boy who gets caught in the crossfire. It's true: The coverup is always worse than the original problem. If only William Stark hadn't gotten suspicious about the ostensibly gibberish text message a Bantu development officer sent from Cameroon just before he vanished, Rene E. Eriksen, his boss at the Evaluation Department for Developmental Assistance, wouldn't have had to send him off to Africa to investigate or assented to a shadowy banker's order to have him murdered on his return. And if only Marco Jameson, a teenage beggar hiding from his uncle Zola, who planned to have him maimed to increase his daily take, hadn't taken refuge in Stark's grave, Zola wouldn't be sending his young corps fanning out all over Copenhagen to find the boy before he can lead the police to the body Zola buried himself. Now Marco is frantically on the run. Eriksen and his old schoolmate and co-conspirator, banker Teis Snap, are headed for a major falling-out. And Carl, who'd be perfectly happy investigating the houseboat fire that claimed the life of Minna Virklund, wouldn't have been sucked into a series of coverup murders that threaten to go on forever. These are already tough times for Carl. His girlfriend, psychologist Mona Ibsen, heads off his marriage proposal by breaking up with him; Marcus Jacobsen, the generally supportive head of Copenhagen Homicide, has abruptly retired; and the new acting head, deputy commissioner Lars Bjorn, has saddled Carl with Gordon Taylor, a rookie still in law school, to ride herd on Department Q's expenses, ruin Carl's interrogations and report every minor infraction back to his patron. So all parties concerned can expect major drama. If a scene works, Adler-Olsen never minds reprising it two or three times with minor variations. The result is a tale as big and sprawling as Carl's first four cases (The Purity of Vengeance, 2013, etc.) but more diffuse, more like a TV miniseries than a feature film.

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August 1, 2014
Fifteen-year-old Marco is a skilled pickpocket and thief who longs to be an ordinary Danish youth; he'd rather go to school. But he's been raised in a criminal commune run by Zola, who requires that everyone in the commune prey on unsuspecting Danes. When the bright and streetwise teen realizes that Zola might have him crippled for insubordination, Marco flees, and Zola orders everyone in the commune to hunt him down. Soon, East European thugs and even former African child soldiers turned assassins are hunting for the boy. Adler-Olsen, Denmark's best-selling author, has a way with multiple plotlines that eventually converge (The Purity of Vengeance, 2013). This time out, he begins with a machete murder in Cameroon, financial jiggery-pokery in the Danish government, and smug, murderous Copenhagen banksters. Detective Carl Mrck, Adler-Olsen's fractious main character, is barely mentioned in the first quarter of the book, as Marco and the miscreants he threatens are introduced. But The Marco Effect works, because Marco is a compelling hero, the villains are truly odious, and Mrck and his quirky, savvy subordinates ultimately carry the day.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)