The Hanging Girl

July 6, 2015
The suicide of Christian Habersaat, a recently retired police sergeant from Bornholm, Denmark, kicks off Jussi Adler-Olson’s underwhelming sixth Department Q novel (after 2014’s The Marco Effect). Det. Insp. Carl Mørcks looks into an unsolved case from 17 years earlier that consumed Habersaat’s life—the hit-and-run death of high school student Alberte Goldschmid. The story becomes more complicated when Habersaat’s grown son, Bjarke, kills himself and young women start disappearing from the Nature Absorption Academy, a sun cult. The female characters are gratingly one-note: nearly all their narratives revolve around stealing men or getting revenge on the women who stole their men. Adler-Olsen is evidently relying on readers’ knowledge of previous books to understand his characters’ motivations, but without such a background, the detectives come off as flat and underdeveloped. It is a truism that good writing follows the rule of “show, don’t tell”; unfortunately, when it comes to its characters, this crime thriller neither shows nor tells.

Starred review from September 1, 2015
Department Q's sixth entry recaptures the investigative detail and seductive characterization of the series' reader-magnet debut (The Keeper of Lost Causes, 2011). Carl Mrck, the Copenhagen cold-case squad's prickly leader, has no intention of going to remote Bornholm Island, no matter how intriguing the case, and he quickly rejects Sergeant Christian Habersaat's request for assistance. Hours later, Habersaat commits suicide, and Mrck and his team, Rose and Assad, are forced to travel to Bornholm, where they must confront Habersaat's personal white whale: the 17-year-old killing of local student Alberte Goldschmid, who died after a hit-and-run flung her into a tree. Bornholm's investigators never found any useful evidence, but Habersaat was certain there was a connection to a VW bus and a nearby hippie encampment. Unfortunately for Mrck, the dead student's classmates and the hippies have moved on, and Habersaat's zealotry has alienated the few remaining witnesses. Adler-Olsen wields a one-two punch of psychological suspense, as his trademark parallel plot follows the remorseless killer's manipulations while the humorous, sometimes touching rapport between Mrck and Assad threatens to steal the show. A must for procedural devotees and fans of Scandinavian mysteries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2015

In the sixth Department Q thriller (after The Marco Effect), a cold case involving a 17-year-old girl found hanging in a tree leads Det. Carl Morck and his assistants Assad and Rose to a sun-worshipping cult on the remote island of Bornholm. Team newcomer Gordon joins the fray.

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