The Scarred Woman

July 10, 2017
Scandinavian crime fiction fans will find bestseller Adler-Olsen’s seventh Department Q novel (after 2015’s The Hanging Girl) satisfyingly dark, both in tone and content. Carl Mørck, the cantankerous head of Department Q (Copenhagen’s cold-case division), seeks a connection between the murder of an elderly woman and a similar crime more than a decade earlier. With looming budget cuts threatening the very existence of Department Q and a crime documentary program’s production crew dogging his every move, Mørck must also deal with the mental unraveling of his assistant, Rose Knudsen, whose nightmarish past comes to light after she inexplicably vanishes. When Mørck and his team discover that a series of brutal hit-and-run murders targeting young women are connected with not only the cold case but Rose’s disappearance, they must locate her before it’s too late. The parallel story lines make this an undeniable page-turner, but the portrayal of female characters as morally bankrupt and/or irreparably damaged may strike some readers as chauvinistic.

July 15, 2017
Given the crowded field of wounded, murderous females on display in this seventh case for Copenhagen's Department Q (The Hanging Girl, 2015, etc.), it's hard to know just where to pin the title in this cavalcade of woman's inhumanity to woman.Whoever struck the blow that killed Rigmor Zimmermann and took 10,000 kroner from her handbag seemed to be copying the murder of substitute teacher Stephanie Gundersen more than 10 years ago, with one important difference: Gundersen's killer didn't go the extra mile in humiliation by pissing on her corpse. Carl Morck, who heads Department Q, seizes the possible connection as avidly as a spaniel on a scent because solving another cold case would be the perfect way to keep Copenhagen's tightfisted budgeters from shutting his unit down. Unfortunately, Carl's boss, Lars Bjorn, has his own idea of the perfect way: allow meddlesome TV crime documentarian Olaf Borg-Pedersen unobstructed access to Department Q's inner workings as they plod from one crime scene to the next. Meanwhile, social worker Anne-Line Svendsen, reprieved from the death sentence she feared her cancer diagnosis spelled, has decided to go ahead anyway with her plan to execute some of the prostitutes she counts among her most worthless clients: Michelle Hansen, Jazmine Jorgensen, Birna Sigurdardottir, Senta Berger, and Denise Zimmermann--some of whom turn out to be quite as homicidally inclined as she is, and one of whom will have a crucial connection to Carl's cold case. The only thing needed to bring the whole mixture to a full boil is the mental breakdown of sorely tried Department Q staffer Rose Knudsen, whose suicide attempt ends up plunging her into the heart of this banquet of mostly female felonies.Instead of focusing on a single high-concept case, Adler-Olsen lays out several florid plotlines and sets his crime-solvers the daunting task of gathering all the threads together. It's such a varied smorgasbord that even readers who'd prefer to skip a given dish will find plenty to sate their appetites.

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April 1, 2017

The body of an elderly woman is found in a Copenhagen park, and since this book features Det. Carl MOrck of Department Q, Copenhagen's cold cases division, you can bet the case bears resemblance to an unsolved murder dating back a decade. The race is on, and if MOrck doesn't win this one, Department Q will be closed.

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