A CONSPIRACY OF FAITH: JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN

Another Department Q novel, set in Copenhagen. Like the other novels, this one deals with another psychopath, just one this time,  but we get let into his childhood, how his parents shaped his character, his hatefulness, a result, too, of a severe religious household. As a result, all of his victims come from religious households, in some ways, crazy like him.  We never learn the psychopaths name, just his method.  He befriends a family, gains their trust, then asks to take two of their kids to a movie or park.  He then kidnaps them, hides them away, and asks for a ransom or threatens to kill the children.  He always gets the money, then kills one of the children, returns the other, threatening the parents that if they go to the police, he will kill another child.  Needless to say, this works well, and by the time Morck finds the case, this crazy has been following this modus operandi for ten years.

He actually has a wife and child, a sister whom accidentally blinded when he was young.  Of course, the wife eventually discovers the truth about him, as does one of the families in the process of trying to get their kidnapped child back. Morck is able to find a family who suffered this terrible crime, and convinces the one family member who was released to talk, so that by putting together this one victim's story, he's able to discover the killer, where he lives, and at the last moment, he's able to find the two children recently kidnapped, save their lives, and with the help of Assad, and one of the victims, kill the 'evil doer.'  We do get some understanding of what drives a person to these sorts of things, but it never really makes up for the violence he commits.  There is always more to it than an unhappy or violent childhood.  Morck, by the way, takes in his handicapped buddy. Hardy, into his house and finally consummates a relationship with his psychiatrist, something he's been hoping to do for a couple of books.   His life is certainly more complicated as a result of Hardy and his lover but he's happier, too.