The Book Bump

First Published:
Author: Jussi Alder Olsen
Original language: Danish
Reading language: English
Genre: Scandinavian Thriller / Nordic Noir
My rating: 4.5/5

Redemption follows the team’s investigation of a letter in a bottle found 19 years earlier. Little do they know that the cold case will have direct consequences in the present.

This is the 3rd book in Jussi Alder Olsen’s department Q series, which takes the series to the next level. The first two are good; this one was great.

It’s a long book, perhaps a tad too long, but it didn’t feel like a drag.

Since it has been so long since I read the first two novels in this series, I had trouble remembering who the characters were and what their relationships were. I could have done with a refresher on who’s who. But that’s on me, not the author. The author could have included a list of main characters and their links to each other, as Larsson did in his Millenium series.

The characters, especially Assad and Rose, seemed to have evolved a lot between the second and third books. I am especially curious to learn more about these two characters with murky backstories.

However, the sudden change in these characters left me feeling a little off-kilter. It seems a lot has happened between the second and third books without the reader knowing what. That being said, it doesn’t have a huge impact on the book’s enjoyment.

Carl Morck is still as insufferable as ever, but he is the kind of character you have a love/loathe relationship with. However, in this instalment, he seemed worse than in the previous two. He isn’t a hero as one would imagine. He gets his job done if he feels he wants to. He is realistic.

The villain was by far the best character in the book. The crimes he committed are things you could imagine hearing about on the news, which made him even more realistic. What he was capable of and how he carried out his atrocities was cold, calculating, and clever for sure. And, more importantly, believable.

I docked half a point because the subplots are a bit hard to follow, and some seem a little out of the blue. Some were a bit of a distraction from the main event, making the read somewhat confusing at times. One subplot felt very out of character for Morck. Perhaps there was some foreshadowing in the previous instalments that I have forgotten. Either way, I hope they will be elaborated on in the later instalments.

Another aspect of the book that led me to dock some points is the casual racism littered throughout the book. I’m not sure what the author hoped to achieve with this. Perhaps to show a more realistic Danish society? I don’t know, but on occasions, it felt uncomfortable.

I look forward to sinking my teeth into Guilt, the next book in the series.