Review {The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Title:  The Keeper of Lost Causes
Author: Jussi Adler-Olsen

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Publisher:  Penguin Group

Available:  Now

Source:  Netgalley

About the book:

Carl Morck used to be a very good detective, but then a case goes bad and he loses one colleague to death and the other will never be the same and Carl blames himself and loses all ambition in the job.  All of the sudden he's in charge of his own department, Department Q, a new investigational tool to review cold cases.  Carl is now in charge of nothing but drinking coffee and surfing the web.  When Hafez el Assad becomes his new assistant, they soon find themselves covering a cold case with renewed interest.  There lives become involved with a case revolving around a lost politician and quickly learns there was more to the disappearance then the politician simply committing suicide.

My take:

This crime novel kept the suspense up and going through the end.  It took me a bit to get into as the first 20 pages or so set the reader up for the rest of the book, but I was glad I kept going, because once I got into the storyline it kept me reading.  The style was a bit halted in some spots, but I think it is a translation issue not the actual writing because I felt the same about parts of Stieg Larsson's books.  This book has been renamed several times in different markets from "Woman in a Cage" in the Danish market to "Mercy" in the UK version and now "The Keeper of Lost Causes."  I can understand the name change because that is the reason behind the Department Q, but I really liked the other names better.  The characters all have their own issues and the author has done a brilliant job of giving each character their own personality..(I really like Assad and can't wait to learn more about him).    The reader really has to watch the years in the first few chapters because going between Merete (the politician) and Carl can be a bit confusing.  There is a book 2 and 3, but I don't know when or if they are being published in the US but I will be on the lookout for them!

6 thumbs up!  Give it a read soon!

I was given a copy of this book via the publisher through netgalley for review.  No other compensation was given and I was not required to give a positive review.