by Jussi Adler-Olsen
When a dead refugee is washed ashore in Cyprus the press refers to her as Victim 2117, the two thousand, one hundred and seventeenth to die in the Mediterranean Sea. But the supposedly unnamed victim hits much closer to home for Departments Q’s Assad, and he finally has no choice but to relive the painful memories from his time in Middle East, in order to prevent the loss of thousands of innocent lives.
I have read several of the Department Q novels and have also watched the TV adaptations, so I was really excited to read the next instalment. However, the book followed on from an incident that had happened with Rose (one of the Department Q team) which I couldn’t really follow as I had not read the previous book – The Scarred Woman. As a result, I found it hard to fully get involved in the story. Having said that, I thought the plot was really interesting and, unlike a lot of crime novels, it focussed on terrorism which made the story feel very real. For me, it is easy to stay detached from a story about a serial killer or murder investigation but, as this plot was based around terrorism and suicide bombings, it read like it could be a true account of something happening in the news today.
Even though this book concentrated on Assad, Detective Carl Mørck is still one of my favourite characters and I really enjoyed reading more from the Department Q team. The storyline was very dark and probably not for everyone, but it was definitely an exciting and thought provoking read.
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