The Scarred Woman (Department Q Book 7)

5 starsFormer police officer Marcus Jacobsen is reading the newspaper one day and notices an article about sixty-seven year old Rigmor Zimmermann’s murder. Her body was found in a park. Marcus is struck by the similarity of an earlier crime. Surely the current police force would have checked the history to look for similar cases. Right? He calls his old subordinate Carl Morck and asks him to take over the case from homicide.Carl is having problems with his current boss Lars Bjorn. For some reason Bjorn is trying to sabotage Department Q. He reports to the politicians and the commissioner that Carl’s department is only clearing 25% of their cases, when the truth is they are clearing 65%. Bjorn already has plans to shut down Carl’s department.Rose, Carl’s unpredictable and volatile secretary, is having her own problems. She is splitting apart mentally. She finally checks in to the local mental hospital. Carl, Conrad and Assad join with Rose’s sisters and after reading her journals learn quite a bit about Rose’s tragic past. Her volatility and dressing like her sisters is only part of it. Carl wants this valuable member of his team to come back to them.Carl goes straight to the commissioner and with him is the judicial committee made up of local politicians. They are having a meeting. Carl bursts in and shows the commissioner his statistics. The commissioner is surprised. Supremely happy that he has cut Bjorn off at the pass, he is surprised to discover Olaf Borg-Pedersen from Station 3 news in his office. They want to follow him around for a bit. Bjorn has already approved it. Carl has a great plan to turn it on Bjorn and completely mess up his day.Meanwhile a social worker by the name of Anne –Line Svendsen (and prefers to call herself Anneli), is tired of her useless and complaining clients. She discovers that she has breast cancer and decides to take revenge upon the useless of society; women in their late twenties who have been on social for quite a while and are completely uninterested in getting work or getting off benefits. She is going to kill them by running them down with stolen cars. Her plan proceeds apace, but she makes some mistakes. She is very cunning and smart, however, and seems to land on her feet.Meanwhile three of the “girls” on Anneli’s list are planning something big to get money. But things go wrong. Rose gets into more trouble.I simply love Jussi Adler-Olsen’s novels, especially the Department Q series. I like Carl, Assad and now Conrad. I’m not too sure about Rose, for I haven’t quite figured her out yet. She is entertaining and interesting, that’s for sure. Carl has a real sense of justice and fights exhaustively for his victims and his department. Assad is a mysterious figure from the Near East. He has a shadowy background about which he doesn’t talk. Carl is constantly amazed and left wondering about where Assad learned his many skills. Conrad is learning his job and coming along just fine. Rose is just Rose. This book is extremely well written, plotted and translated. I take my hat off to the translator William Frost who has done a remarkable job. The reader meets many people in this book; some you like and some you don’t.There are many twists in this story, so hang on to your hat and strap in for the ride. We have a myriad of people all with their own motivations. Circumstances throw them together in interesting way. They try to extricate themselves from their troubles, some to good effect, some not so good.Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant…

Interesting characters in this series one of whom faces a crisis amidst multiple murders. Not the strongest in the series but an enjoyable read.

My husband and I just finished the audio edition of this mystery. It's the end of the Thanksgiving weekend for us, so we listened to it both to and from our daughter's home about 7 hours away. This is one of the most entertaining books in this series. Detective Carl Mork (sp?) has always included some humor in his novels, but with this book he really let his comic genius loose. The book starts out with a group of young, irresponsible women who are on welfare and follows them through multiple high jinks as they try to commit a crime. Their bumbling escapades kept me and my husband laughing frequently on our trip. Carl is at his acerbic best and Assad continues to botch his funny understanding of a foreign language.One reviewer mentioned Rose was sidelined, but I think she was at the center of the plot as she confronts her demons. She may not have been helped solve the case but her presence was always felt by my husband and me. We got home before the audio book was finished so we finished it off on the sofa. Towards the end the plot moved at a galloping speed so we had to see it through to the end.This can be read as a stand alone book, but it will have more meaning and humor if the previous novels are read first. This mismatched group in department Q are worth getting to know.

This theme of Denmark welfare dysfunction, perhaps applicable to all Scandinavian social strata,presents striking roles and conflicts between faceless bureaucrats and lost children portrayed asgrotesque Barby Dolls with little to lose when drifting into violence with nothing to stop them..Thepresentation of the characters reflecting welfare as a blueprint for mischief or much worse is whatcarries the novel.I have read all of the Department Q books and continue to find Carl and his castso unique and fun that the books just never disappoint. But a major flaw lies in extensive passagesabout the demise of Rose and the solving of the murder of her malignant father..This huge chunk wasnot worthy of any significance or reader interest and damaged plot appeal and pacing beyond repair..

This book is the seventh in a brilliant series of mysteries featuring Department Q of the Copenhagen police. The series is best read in order because of the complexity of the continuing characters. Department Q investigates cold cases. I cannot think of any other series that is like this one. The mixture of police procedural, psychological thriller, and dark humor is unusual. Detective Carl Morck leads the department with Rose, Gordon, and Assad. All the books delve deeply into dark psychological territory with both the team and the criminals. This book is no exception to that. When the book, begins, Rose is clearly in trouble mentally and having a psychotic episode with the reappearance of multiple personalities and desperation. Rose has always been a key to the team’s success, and the team is devoted to her professionally and personally. While they work to solve multiple current and cold murders that seem unrelated, they also delve into Rose’s past to try to discover what may be tormenting her. The plot is complicated, but the author does not let it get away from him. Assad is one of the most interesting characters ever written. I like it when he is in focus. This Copenhagen is not the city of the little mermaid or Tivoli Gardens. It is the city of old Nazi secrets, broken people, spoiled brats, and seriously dysfunctional folks. Department Q is worth the trip into the basement.

É como se fosse um thriller, onde você não consegue parar de ler.Para quem gosta de livros policiais com suspense, recomendo.Carlos-Vitória ES

​I’ve now completed book seven in the Department Q series, it really speaks to the strength of Adler-Olsen’s characters that I’m still so invested in the series; I find all too often with a series that it will go stale over time, but these characters are continually refreshed, with background secrets still just around the next turn.The best word that I can use to describe The Scarred Woman is ambitious. Not only has Adler-Olsen taken us into his most colorful character’s (Rose) past but he has included eight murders, and so many damaged characters that Carl is beginning to come across as a perfectly adjusted member of society. The dysfunctional family dynamics have been brought up to a whole new level. And he did all of this seamlessly, all of the action flowed perfectly from one set of crimes to the other.What I love most about this series are the characters. The way that they are all so damaged by their pasts yet function so well together is simply amazing. They say that the truth is stranger than fiction, but this, my friend, is some pretty strange fiction. Where does he get the ideas for these crimes and these criminals? Does Adler-Olsen have some demented deviant locked-up in his cellar and manages to coerce his deepest, darkest schemes from him? If these stories are ripped from the Danish headlines, it must be one heck of a dangerous place.The best part of finishing The Scarred Woman is knowing that there is more to come. The next book in the series, Victim 2117, promises to delve into Assad’s story. This is one character whose mystery has been building for a long time now. And who knows, could we eventually see some resolution to Carl’s damaged soul?

I really enjoyed this book. Yes it is confusing and some ideas seams far fetched but I felt with Rose and a little with the case-worker and found it really a good read. And I am wondering what will be the theme of the next book! I am really looking forward to it!

'The Scarred Woman' is the seventh novel in the Department Q series and I think it is one of the best in the series to date. It can be read as a 'stand alone' novel as unlike the previous novels in the series, the on-going nail gun killer investigation is hardly mentioned (if at all). Instead what we get in this novel is a focus on Rose's back story (Rose being one of the central team members of Department Q) as well as a number of murders for the team to investigate, only one of which is an unsolved 'cold' case.The story has the usual ingredients we expect from a Jussi Adler Olsen Department Q novel: some very dry humorous moments; interesting (bordering on satirical) observations of various aspects of Danish society (their media, police & their benefits culture, to name just three); realistic characters and a plot that contains plenty of twists and turns as the story unfolds (including some quite gruesome, but not gratuitous, scenes).So while I would recommend you should read the previous novels (in order of publication) to get the fullest enjoyment from this book, it is not an essential requirement. As for me, I now have the agonising wait for the next book in the series to be published in which I believe Assad takes a more central role.

This is the nth book from Olsen that I have read and it is amazing how he grips your attention from the first page. I loved it