The Keeper of Lost Causes

The Keeper of Lost Causes (also published as Mercy in some markets) is where Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q series starts, and it is the right place to start. The setup is one of the cleanest in modern crime fiction. Carl Morck is a Copenhagen homicide detective whose career was ended in all but title by a botched call that killed one colleague and paralyzed another. The department's solution is to invent a cold-case unit, give him an office in the basement, and forget about him.

Morck, true to type, refuses to be forgotten. The first case he pulls from the stack is the five-year-old disappearance of a popular young politician. The investigation is told in alternating chapters with what is happening to that politician, who is not dead, and who is being kept in a soundproofed room by someone she does not know.

The structural decision to show you the victim alive while Morck is still wondering whether she is dead is what makes the book work. The Department Q office banter starts here, with Morck and his impossible assistant Assad finding their rhythm. The ending lands hard. Five stars. Read this first, then The Absent One, then A Conspiracy of Faith, and accept that the next two months are gone.