![\"\"](\"\/aa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/keeperoflostcauses.jpg\" "\\"keeperoflostcauses\\"")
<\/a>These are belatedly being translated and published in English, with two available at the moment.\u00a0 This first volume was actually written in 2007, though it was available here in 2011.\u00a0 Hopefully this lag time will go away as I imagine I\u2019m not the only one enjoying these books.<\/p>\nThe main character is the irascible and cranky Carl Morck, injured in the line of duty, and temperamentally unable to work with anyone else.\u00a0 A perfect solution seems to be presented to his boss when he\u2019s given a huge amount of funding for a cold case division, called \u201cDepartment Q\u201d.\u00a0 Morck is banished to the basement of headquarters, his superiors and co-workers can breathe more easily, and he literally puts his feet up and decides to coast through his work days, playing solitaire and napping.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a novel, of course, and Adler-Olsen isn\u2019t one to let things lie. \u00a0He\u2019s laced his narrative with the story of the disappearance and captivity of a beautiful young politician, Merete Lynggaarde.\u00a0 It becomes clear (though it\u2019s pretty obvious) that she\u2019s the one being held captive in a concrete room for reasons unknown to her or to the reader.<\/p>\n
Carl\u2019s awakening takes a bit of unexpected expectations from the assistant he demands and receives.\u00a0 It turns out his new helper, Assad, is more than willing to actually assist in solving cases, and reluctant to spend his entire workday rearranging and cleaning their basement office.\u00a0 As Carl begins to listen to Assad \u2013 who tries to make their workplace pleasant by serving tea, playing music, and in general cleaning up and making their office space livable \u2013 he is also reluctantly drawn to one old case among the many files in his office.\u00a0 Of course, it\u2019s the disappearance and presumed death of Merete.<\/p>\n
Adler-Olsen, who has been a musician, a writer of books about cartoons and Groucho Marx, and who has studied medicine, sociology and film-making, brings a wide array of skill sets to the table.\u00a0 He\u2019s an excellent thriller writer, but he\u2019s also great with character, as the pairing of Carl and Assad is delightful and can obviously nourish many books to come.\u00a0 Assad\u2019s enthusiasm contrasted with Carl\u2019s depression and lethargy is a perfect mix.\u00a0 And while many of our bookstore clientele have indicated they are weary of the \u201ctroubled detective\u201d method of storytelling, Adler-Olsen manages to bring some zest to the whole affair.<\/p>\n
Carl\u2019s whole backstory \u2013 his ex-wife who won\u2019t leave the shambles of a cottage in his backyard; the cranky adolescent stepson he\u2019s inherited and who lives with him; his peculiar lodger who turns out to have a love for Playmobil toys; and most of all his police backstory, involving the death and injury of two of his colleagues \u2013 makes him a rich and intriguing character. Adler-Olsen is excellent at teasing out these details throughout the story, just as he ramps up the suspense by making the end of the book a will-he-get-to-her-in-time affair.\u00a0 The investigation details are excellent as well.<\/p>\n
The translation seems serviceable, and while the action sequences in no way match a master like Robert Crais\u2019, that may be the translation.\u00a0 The action bits are a tad clunky, but by the time they arrive, you simply won\u2019t care.\u00a0 I\u2019m truly looking forward to the further adventures of Carl Morck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adler-Olsen joins a long line of wildly popular (and actually wildly different from each other) Scandanavian crime writers who started with Henning Mankell and were really ramped up by the popularity of Steig Larssen.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t been a huge fan of some of the other Scandinavians (including Jo Nesbo), but I love Karin Fossum\u2019s lovely … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2625,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions\/2625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}