Friday, January 16, 2015

THE ABSENT ONE: JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN


The second Department Q series deals with another old case, a brother and sister found dead in a cottage nine years ago.  Morck, his assistant, Assad, and new character, Morck's secretary/amateur sleuth Rose, soon discover that all evidence leads back to a prep school, where a group of students, now seeming masters of the universe, all successful and millionaires, made a reputation for bullying, violence, and getting away with their games, even going so far as to set up a teacher by having one of their group seduce him, then tell the Headmaster.

One of the group, however, the only girl, Kimmie, breaks away, lives on the streets and is the key to unlock he case and Morck's understanding of this group. of their various victims over the past ten years.  Adler-Olsen seems to have a thing for the elite, the upper class as it were because here they are all psychopaths, enjoying watching others suffer.  I won't go into the tangled web of circumstances and evidence.  They do get their comeuppance in the end.  I got tired of reading about mid way through, knowing who was guilty and having to wait for their being caught.  Adler-Olsen likes to take you into the minds of both sleuth and perpetrators, of Morck and the psychopaths, so we get to see their thinking, why they do things, how they squirm and struggle once they know Morck's on their case.  By the way, Rose is a welcome addition, a psycho who adds flavor to Department Q.  I wonder who Adler-Olsen might add next to the Department Q's office.

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