The Purity of Vengeance
A Department Q Novel
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4.3 • 29 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
New York Times bestselling author Jussi Adler-Olsen returns as Detective Carl Mørck and his Department Q team delve into a cold case that turns into more than they may be able to handle...
In 1987, Nete Hermansen plans revenge on those who abused her—especially Curt Wad, a surgeon who was part of a movement to sterilize wayward girls in the 1950s. More than twenty years later, Detective Carl Mørck already has plenty on his mind when he is presented with the case of a brothel owner, a woman named Rita, who went missing in the eighties: New evidence has emerged in the case that sent Carl to Department Q.
But when Carl’s assistants, Assad and Rose, learn that numerous other people disappeared around the same weekend as Rita, Carl takes notice. Sifting through the evidence, they inch closer to Curt Wad, who is still committed to his twisted beliefs, and whose treatment of Nete only hints at his capacity for evil.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the fourth entry in Adler-Olsen's Department Q series, brilliant but hapless head detective Carl M rck and his assistants the feisty, demanding Rose and the devious Assad are faced with a multiple-murder cold case dating back to the 1950s. That's when Curt Wad, a closet fascist, performed secret involuntary abortions and sterilizations on "the unfit." Surprisingly, Adler-Olsen manages to mix humor into a novel with such a dark back-story. Chief among the amusements are the extended effects a flu virus has on the department, which the author presents in painfully funny detail, and M rck's continuous victimization at the hands of his degenerate cousin. Both are enhanced by narrator Malcolm who treats a description of a bright red, leaky nose with the same crisp approach he might use for a Shakespearean sonnet. Malcolm presents the perennially sighing M rck with a voice that fluctuates from despairing to wistful to cautiously hopeful, marked by swiftly dissipating moments of elation. There's a tinge of amusement in Rose's shrill and angry commands. And the virus-infected Assad speaks with a subdued voice that's filtered through a stuffy nose. Malcolm is just as effective in rendering the novel's more serious sections, capturing the smarmy unction and unbridled evil of Wad. A Dutton hardcover.
Customer Reviews
Purity of Vengeance
Like the series but this was not the best of them so far. Still a good read.