The Hanging Girl
A Department Q Novel
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4.0 • 27 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX SERIES DEPT. Q
New York Times and internationally bestselling author Jussi Adler-Olsen delivers an exhilarating mystery in the Department Q series, featuring Detective Carl Mørck and his enigmatic assistants, Assad and Rose.
In the middle of his usual hard-won morning nap in the basement of police headquarters, Carl Mørck, head of Department Q, receives a call from a colleague working on the Danish island of Bornholm. Carl is dismissive when he realizes that a new case is being foisted on him, but a few hours later, he receives some shocking news that leaves his headstrong assistant Rose more furious than usual. Carl has no choice but to lead Department Q into the tragic cold case of a vivacious seventeen-year-old girl who vanished from school, only to be found dead hanging high up in a tree. The investigation will take them from the remote island of Bornholm to a strange sun-worshipping cult, where Carl, Assad, Rose, and newcomer Gordon attempt to stop a string of new murders and a skilled manipulator who refuses to let anything—or anyone—get in the way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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 M rcks 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.
