Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for this reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.

This is the title that got me into the series. When I saw it was book 7 I decided to read the first 6 books. I'm so glad I did! Not only did I find a new series and author to follow but sometimes you can pick up a book in a series and not feel like you missed anything by not reading the titles that precede it. But Adler-Olsen is doing some character development and there's a storyline beginning in book 1 that is getting built on in each book and I think I would feel a little confused if I hadn't read books 1-6 first.

The aftermath of the hypnosis from book 6 has mostly faded with Carl and Assad but not so with Rose. If anything it made her worse than she's ever been. For months she's been trying to put on a brave face and fight the mental fight but she's exhausted and she just can't do it any longer. Anything could be the straw that break's the camel's, or Rose's, back and it comes in the form of a mugging gone wrong and a cold case from the old supervisor of homicide. Meanwhile, a caseworker in Copenhagen has just been dealt a personal blow - she has breast cancer. The news shocks her into a crime spree that nobody can link to her and she knows it. She's on a mission to rid the world of the dregs of society, in her opinion, before the cancer takes her life. But who she targets happens to also be in the spotlight for both the mugging gone wrong and the cold case that sends Rose into a mental black hole. Carl, Asssad, and Gordon are racing against time to solve the 5 cases tacked up on the situation room board. The most important case for them to solve is the one of Rose, whom they can't imagine Department Q without.

This was a super intense backstory on Rose and I loved it. I love getting to know characters better. It was also a fascinating look at what can happen when someone reaches their breaking point as both Rose and the caseworker did. Adler-Olsen was able to channel the entitlement of some that makes others resort to violence. It was all very well done. What a deep, intense story and super deep character development.

This thriller seems to focus on women with psychological problems, young and old, who evidence bizarre or criminal behavior. A bit one-sided.

Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Group Dutton for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I always enjoy a mystery where I can figure out the story before the ending of the book and this book delivered on that. This was another great book in this Department Q series. Full of quirky and unique characters, the story is suspenseful, surprising and tense. Carl and his team are working on a case, helping their colleague Rose after her mental breakdown, all while trying to keep their department together.
I enjoyed this book from start to finish and can't wait for the next one.

Though I liked the book, I made the decision when I finished not to review it on my site because it didn't fit into my editorial schedule. I may include it in a review post or possibly a book list post in the future.

This is the first I have read from Jessi and it will definitely not be the last! This was such a thrilling ride that I cant wait to see what else he has coming up in the future!

Carl Mørck, the crotchety-but-very-skilled homicide detective whose Copenhagen-based Department Q is relegated to the basement, is back in the seventh installment of Adler-Olsen’s unusual series. I’ll admit, when I read the first book, The Keeper of Lost Causes, I wasn’t sure if Carl was for me. He ticks a lot of my boxes, though. I like my detectives cranky with a genuinely good heart buried underneath all that rough and tumble, but he’s missing some of the existential angst that I love so much. But … that’s ok. I fell in love with Carl and his Middle Eastern “assistant” Assad, who serves up a coffee concoction that will knock your socks off and is so much more than he seems. His background still isn’t clear seven books in, although he seems well-versed in the more darker arts of policing, much to Carl’s frequent chagrin.

For those new to the series, Department Q is basically the department’s cold-case crew, formed as a way for Carl’s (former) boss to relegate him to the basement while showing the brass they could get things done. It was formed after a shooting that killed a member of Carl’s team and paralyzed another—he’s now living with Carl—and Carl was a right mess after that. But it’s been nine years, and a LOT has happened.


There’s, of course, a properly complicated case (actually a few) driving part of the narrative of The Scarred Woman, but this is really Rose’s book. So, let’s talk about Rose Knudsen. Rose makes her first appearance in the second book of the series, The Absent One, and she’s certainly an odd duck from the beginning. But she proves to be an asset to the group, and Carl comes to care about her despite himself.

Rose has already been committed once, but things come to a terrifying head, and her descent into madness is terrifying:

Rose braked the scooter two hundred meters before the red light.

She suddenly couldn’t remember the way. Even though she had taken the same route for so many years, it didn’t look like it normally did today.

She looked around. Only ten minutes ago in Ballerup it had been the same and now it was happening again. Her memory was playing tricks on her. Of course she knew that she couldn’t drive through the viaduct and up on to Bispeengbuen on a scooter, which was only allowed to travel at thirty kilometers an hour. So where was it she was meant to turn? Was there a road a little further along that went down towards Borups Alle? Maybe to the right?

In desperation, she rested the tips of her toes on the tarmac and pressed her lips together. “What’s going on with you, Rose?” she said aloud, causing a passer-by to shake their head before hurrying away.

She coughed a couple of times in frustration, feeling like she was about to throw up. She stared in bewilderment at the traffic, which resembled an endless chaos of playing pieces at war with one another. The deep humming of dozens of engines and even just the variety of colors of the vehicles caused her to break out in a cold sweat.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember what she could do blindfolded. For a moment, she considered turning around and driving home but then she would have to cross the road and how would she manage to do that? When it came to it, could she even remember the way home? She shook her head. Why on earth should she turn around when she was closer to the police headquarters than she was to home? It didn’t make any sense.

Rose had been in this state of confusion for several days now, and suddenly it felt as if her body had become too small for everything it was carrying. As if all the thoughts swarming in her head that she couldn’t cope with, couldn’t even be contained in several heads. If she didn’t break down when she was feeling like this, coming up instead with all sorts of strange ideas to avoid it, she’d probably slowly burn out.

Rose bit her cheek until it bled. Maybe the ward in Glostrup had discharged her too early last time. One of her sisters had certainly implied it, and there was no mistaking Assad’s worried looks. Could she really rule out that her sister might have been right? Maybe it wasn’t an alarming mix of depression and personality disorder that were at the root of her breakdown. Was she basically just ins…?

“STOP these thoughts, Rose!” she blurted out, and once again a passer-by turned and stared at her.

When Rose admits herself to the psychiatric hospital again, seemingly worse than ever, Carl and Co. decide to find out the truth about Rose’s father’s death almost ten years ago. Rose was there, and they have a sinking feeling she may have had something to do with it.

Additionally, they get dragged into an active case involving a social worker, Anne-Line Svendsen, who is disgusted with all the well-dressed young women taking advantage of the system. When she’s diagnosed with cancer, she feels as if she has nothing to lose and decides to rid the world of what she considers wastrels.

Anne-Line “Anneli” is a piece of work. She’s somewhat sympathetic; these women are awful. In fact, one of them might be a murderer herself, and they have no problem with taking advantage or hurting people to get what they want. But, of course, murder is never the answer. It's darkly funny watching the lengths Anneli goes to in her research of the best way to go about murder and not get caught, and she undeniably gets results, eventually descending into a spiral of no return.

Here’s where this series diverges from what I usually like when it comes to suspense: the humor. Adler-Olsen is funny, but it’s a black humor that may not work quite so well in other hands. For those new to the series that like things dark, don’t worry, these books get dark. Sometimes very dark. Rose’s plight is heartbreaking, especially when the why of it is revealed. I would, of course, urge readers to start at The Keeper of Lost Causes and work their way up—it’ll provide a much richer experience. That said, you could probably start here, although much of the character nuance might be lost.

This is a superb series, and it just keeps getting better and better. Get to know Carl and his very unusual group of friends and acquaintances. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

To be clear, I love Jussi Adler-Olsen; however, this book was not one of my favorites. The characters, normally so alive and so engaging, seemed stifled this time. And the story of Rose took far too much time and wasn't entirely believable. It's still a good book and is worth reading; it simply wasn't his best effort, in my opinion.

Classic Adler-Olsen, a delightfully chilling return to Department Q. If you're Danish in your heart, but you can't yet spring for a ticket to Denmark, you could do worse than to walk the streets of Copenhagen with Detective Morck.

A lengthy installment of the Department Q series, with many divergent threads converging in surprising ways. It took me much longer to get into this one than previous books, though the curiously compelling style of writing (is it sarcasm? is it the translation?) eventually reeled me in.

I read and enjoyed the first four Department Q novels, but then missed a couple, so found myself a little out of touch with The Scarred Woman's back story. Still, it was not a problem to jump in again and enjoy this quirky team of police investigators in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In this 7th in the series, Carl and his team investigate multiple intersecting cases, while digging into the past of their friend and colleague Rose, who is in crisis. Though the story in The Scarred Woman took a while to catch my interest, it did and then held it strongly to the end.

Social worker Anna-Lise is tired of dealing with young women who feel entitled to spend government money on clothes and accessories and refusing to find any job. Michelle, Denise, and Jazmine are three young women who bond over their dislike of their social worker Anna-Lise and their need of money and independence. Rose is a police officer but her past keeps haunting her and she gets to a point where the only solution has drastic consequences. As the police investigates a cold case, the murder of woman on the street, a robbery, two hit-and-run, and an old accident, these women’s paths cross, leading to disastrous consequences.

This is my first Nordic thriller and I found the writing style very different from the crime novels I am used to. The action is slow-paced, but as the tension raises I found myself more absorbed in the novel. Although I didn’t like and couldn’t sympathize with any of the women in the novel, they are complex, strong – although mentally unstable – women who fight for their survival in any way they can. This novel is the seventh book in a series and I found some of the subplots regarding the recurring characters confusing as I haven’t read any of the previous books. Despite this, I really enjoyed this book, dark, suspenseful, and full of dramatic moments.

I’ve been a fan of Adler-Olsen since being blown away by Mercy. This new title has a similar dark theme. Scarred Woman should really be Scarred Women, as this novel is full of women whose lives have been marked by hardship, abuse and disturbed family relationships. I understood Anneli’s frustrations and for me she was by far the most interesting character. I also liked the deeper and darker insight into Rose’s early life. The translation felt a little clunky at times - some Americanisms perhaps that I just didn’t understand and which felt strange coming out of the mouths of Danes. I also felt the ending dragged a little, otherwise this would have been a four star review.

"It was deadly quiet in the S-train care because almost all the passengers were surfing on their smartphones and iPads. Some were enthusiastic and concentrated, while others were just scrolling their thumbs over the screen in the desperate hope for some form of contact."

Who can't relate to that image?

The Scarred Woman, by Jussi Adler-Olsen, was a fantastic page-turner of a book — just what I needed!
I'm familiar with the Danish Department Q series thanks to their dramatization (watch the first three movies on Netflix). Those films were such a satisfying, if dark, binge, that I couldn't refuse the offer of a review copy of a novel when it came my way. (Also, I was thrilled to learn there are books behind these films, of course there are.)

The titular scarred woman could refer to any of several women in the novel, all of them in their way both victim and perpetrator.

The women include some unfortunates who are receiving social assistance payments but also scamming the system; their case worker, recently diagnosed with breast cancer; and Rose, a police colleague who suffered a breakdown following the last Department Q case.

All this in a book that opens with a Nazi.

There's a good deal of coincidence going on in this novel. At any other time I might've rolled my eyes, but I think the book is saved by not taking itself too seriously. It's played matter-of-factly, even for laughs in some cases, that it's completely acceptable if not wholly believable.

I found it refreshing too that this novel isn't about Detective Carl Mørck; it focuses on the crimes at hand and the people involved in them.

I'm out of practice at reading crime novels, and I had some difficulty earlier this year in following the action of some (sci-fi) thrillers, so I hesitated to commit to reading this 480-page book, but it read like a breeze. Maybe more practiced readers might find it simplistic, but I found it clear without being overly obvious, well-paced without being weighed down by action, and having moral depth without getting lost in psychological detail.

I'm glad to have discovered this series and I definitely see myself turning to other Department Q novels in the cooling months ahead.

It's been a while since I've read a Department Q novel. This one had so many layers, I was impressed with how the story came together. I had been wanting to read a mystery for a while and this had the characters and complexity that I enjoy.

An interesting enough story but it didn’t exactly “grab” me. You learn quite a bit about Rose’s background, which is quite interesting and definitely worth reading. Much murder and mayhem but still not a page turner for me. Now hoping to learn more about Assad in future books! 3.5 stars.

Once again, Jussi Adler-Olsen has written a great book. He tackles the important issues of increasing apathy and entitlement in young people and serious mental illness, and really makes you root for the "bad guy".

Dept.Q series provides some background on Rose, the quirky assistant. Not only is Rose on the verge of a breakdown, but an elderly woman's body is found in a park, and a hit and run driver is murdering young women. How will Carl, Assad, and Gordon solve the crimes and help Rose? Department Q continues to be one of my favorite series!

THE SCARRED WOMAN is book seven in the Department Q series. This installment finds Department Q detective, Carl Morck, leading up one of his toughest cases yet. The department specializes in cold cases, but this time around it looks like this players in this case are still active and linked to additional, current murders in Copenhagen. In the midst of trying to solve multiple cases together without stepping on the toes of other police departments, Carl and his team must also dive into the troubled life of one of their own.

The novel launches with the discovery of an elderly woman found in a local Copenhagen park that looks eerily similar to a cold case Department Q has in it's backlog, but an outright connection is lacking. Simultaneously across town it appears that young women are being hunted by a hit-and-run killer. Department Q must work against an overwhelming amount of pressure being brought upon them to deliver results or see their department shut down. They'll have to solve this mystery one member short, as Rose has suffered an extreme breakdown, which leaves her unable to assist the team. As the time ticks away to solve the cases in Copenhagen, Rose goes missing and it appears Carl, Assad, and Gordon will also need to save Rose from her past, which is shrouded in a terrible crime. Can Department Q put a killer behind bars and save a co-worker before it's too late?

Jussi Adler-Olsen delivers a masterpiece of mystery and intrigue in THE SCARRED WOMAN. Despite entering in to the series in book seven, I only felt mildly confused about some character's relationships while reading this novel. There are a large number of characters who at first seem unrelated to one another, but ultimately end up being more connected than anyone could have guessed. I felt the novel had a rocky start for me with the introduction of a few characters who I could not quite grasp their importance. Continuing through the novel it was easier to understand why the initial backstory was needed, but I think it might be better placed slightly later in the novel instead of being the opening content.

At the end of the novel I had fallen in love with Department Q. Carl, Assad, Gordon, and Rose each have such unique personalities and perspectives that I couldn't help but want to know more about each of them. I was lucky enough to win a giveaway for the entire series, so I'll definitely be diving into the first installment, THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES, sometime soon. If you're looking for multiple unique storylines with characters you can connect to, THE SCARRED WOMAN should be your next read!

Thank you to Jussi Adler-Olsen, Dutton Books, and NetGalley for providing me a free copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Cold Cases, the Swedish Welfare System, and Murder

Denise and her young friends appear to be gaming the Swedish Welfare System. They dress well, party, and don’t want to work. Anne-Line, their case worker, is frustrated. Why should they receive benefits when they’re so clearly gaming the system? Then the young girls become the victims of a serial killer. Department Q is assigned the case.

The murder of an elderly woman in a park resembles a cold case Department Q is investigating. This puts them in conflict with the department upstairs and affects Department Q’s future. The members of the cold case team, Detective Carl, Assad, and Rose are experiencing their own problems. Rose is recovering from a mental breakdown and appears to be on her way to another one. Assad and Carl care for Rose and want to help her, but the resemblance of one of their cases to her past may be pushing her over the edge.

I found this book hard to get into. It’s part of a series and while it can be read as a standalone, I found parts confusing. The opening is devoted primarily to the welfare system and the young girls who are gaming it. When Department Q comes in, they’re trying to wrap up an old case and worried about the existence of their department. In the end all the threads come together for a satisfying ending, but you have to get well into the book to become immersed in the cases.

I received this book from Dutton for this review.

After leading us down the garden path and round the mulberry bush for several Department Q novels, Jussi Adler-Olsen finally pulls all the threads together in this absurdly clever and extremely convoluted investigation. Finally we discover what’s been going on with his assistant, Rose, for all these years… but not at the expense of the central story. The standalone narrative is the central focus of the book – and what a ripping story it is, full of social observation and truly credible middle-class murder.

I must admit that I’d not bothered with a couple of the more recent Dept Q books, as I’d become frustrated with the balance between ‘story’ and ‘soap-opera’. The focus had shifted from the original raison d’etre of solving the most worthy cold cases using interesting investigative techniques. The original team of two mismatched detectives got flabby, adding increasingly odd assistants to the ensemble as well as a growing number of domestic relationships to complicate Carl Mørck’s private life. It felt like each novel needed at least 500 pages just to run through the regular routines. The story was being submerged under domestic strife and the chaotic politics of police HQ… so I took a break.

The Scarred Woman was exactly the right moment for me to pick up the threads again, because here Adler-Olsen not only delivers payoff for all that build-up, but he integrates it into a superbly constructed multi-layered mystery. The story somehow encompasses a Nazi SS war criminal and his equally reprehensible relatives; a vengeful social worker determined to punish those worthless work-shy air-head claimants who blatantly sponge off an over-generous welfare system; a trio of low-life ladies who graduate from sex with ‘sugar daddies’ to armed robbery to maybe a murder or three. And expertly incorporated into this compelling blend of deceit and dishonesty there’s an older murder to be revealed: the death of a pitiless bully whose victim has struggled to hold onto her sanity ever since…

Rather wonderfully, Adler-Olsen gets to grips with the actual mechanics of committing a crime. His middle-aged, exceedingly average ‘grey woman’ educates herself in how to steal a car, how to silence a gun using household items, how to cover her tracks. He brilliantly brings not one but five female characters to life and sets them running on intersecting tracks – anticipating the inevitable collision is both delicious and gripping.

Nor does he forget his regular cast, so both Hardy and Assad get to play their parts. Assad as ever acts as a comic foil and can be relied upon for a good camel parable just when you need one… but he is also the fount of secret wisdom straight from spook-central. Some day I’d hope to read a standalone Assad story, one which reveals rather more about the shadowy background to this international man of mystery.

Because there’s no doubt that Olsen has re-engaged my interest with this Department Q thriller. The final half-dozen chapters are all-engrossing and the payoff is nigh-on perfect. I’ll be back for more…
9/10