Carl Mørck and the other detectives of Denmark’s Department Q should be celebrating their epic triumph in apprehending a serial killer who’d been working in the shadows for decades. Instead, Carl finds himself in handcuffs and transported to Vestre Prison, accused of corruption and murder himself.

Almost two decades ago, his then-colleague Anker Heyer had asked him to temporarily hold on to a suitcase while Anker was going through a rough personal time. As Anker was also one of his closest friends, Carl readily agreed, putting the suitcase in his attic then almost promptly forgetting about it. Some time later, Anker died in an attack that paralyzed the other member of their tight little trio, Hardy Henningsen. While Carl got off more lightly in terms of physical injuries, he went into an awful emotional spiral. His erratic behavior finally landed him in the Department of Lost Causes, as the derelict branch in charge of cold cases was once known. To everyone’s surprise, Carl and the misfit detectives who eventually joined him were able to start closing cases long thought unsolvable, restoring Department Q’s good name and beginning the long journey of improving his own mental health.

But now that’s all about to be taken from him, as the discovery of the suitcase – filled with drugs and money – threatens to implicate him in whatever shady business Anker had once been up to:

QUOTE
To Anker, social climbing meant getting his hands on money, and lots of it. Why hadn’t Carl foreseen that that might eventually become a problem? Still, the idea that Anker was corrupt, that he was complicit in drug dealing–and worse–it had never crossed his mind. Nor that it would lead to Anker’s death in some godforsaken hovel in Amager. And now here he was, suspected of being his accomplice. The truth was, Carl couldn’t remember a damn thing about almost anything that had happened back then.
END QUOTE

Being arrested would be bad enough, as it means being away from his young family. Nearly as bad is the fact that his colleagues at Department Q have been warned away both from visiting him and from going anywhere near his case. The Police Complaints Authority is handling the investigation into his suspected corruption which, to almost everyone’s chagrin, is being howled across the tabloid front pages. Even his once-fervent supporter and boss, Chief of Homicide Marcus Jacobsen, has grown distant and cold.

But the worst thing about this ordeal by far is the fact that Carl is being given almost zero special protection as a police officer suddenly thrust into a prison population, a good portion of whom he helped put there himself. He could probably avoid the felons that he knows are out for vengeance. Trouble is, the real masterminds behind what happened to Anker are willing to pay lots of money to other criminal inmates to take Carl out of the picture for good.

One of the prisoners approached about assassinating Carl has a fascinating story of his own, stretching all the way back to his youth. Malthe is large and good-natured but simple and poor, and thus a perfect scapegoat when someone needs to take the blame for violent acts:

QUOTE
His friends tried to warn him that the [bully] did martial arts and apparently had a black belt, but Malthe gathered all his strength and threw a single punch, hitting the older boy in the face so hard that he broke a vertebra. The black belt never got back up.

From that point on, Malthe’s path was laid before his feet, taking him through a series of residential institutions and eventually youth detention centers and prisons, a predictable tale of ever-spiraling degeneration, poor decision-making, and an endless train of assaults and mutual violence.
END QUOTE

Malthe and Carl soon find themselves engaged in an intricate dance for survival, even as the rest of Department Q defies their bosses as they race to identify and stop the shadowy figures framing their colleague, in this terrific final volume of their namesake series. Several important figures from the department’s past make very welcome reappearances, so I highly recommend catching up on the prior books before diving into this one. Not only is the truth behind Anker’s death finally revealed, but the truly corrupt figure hiding in the Copenhagen police is unmasked, as (almost) everyone gets the ending they deserve.

Speaking of endings, Locked In closes with a metafiction conceit that I thought was delightful, such that I actually had to make sure that it didn’t hew as closely to reality as I was ready to believe. This is a satisfying finish to a venerable Scandinoir series that has done a wonderful job of entertaining readers for over a decade, particularly in this English language translation by Caroline Waight.

Locked In by Jussi Adler-Olsen is the tenth novel in the Department Q/Carl Morck series and is purported to be the final installment in the series.

The first thing any new potential reader of the series should know is how the novels most definitely should be read in order because aspects of the entire series are sprinkled throughout the entire series.

Also, while my reviews ignore spoilers, this review of Locked In is aimed at consistent readers of the series and if a reader does start with Locked In, then it will appear spoilers have been revealed.

Locked In is set immediately after the end of The Shadow Murders and Carl Morck now finds himself remanded to a prison for eventual trial for very serious crimes stemming from the old and sealed-up suitcase Carl held in his attic for Anker, his previously murdered partner.

Adler-Olsen brings back all the familiar characters previously introduced through the series and includes other possibly long-forgotten characters as well.

As Morck finds himself in prison, he is abandoned by administrators and higher-ups while being tossed into the den full of wolves, and none of them seems to care whether he survives or not. Those only offering support or aid are those from Department Q and while doing so are faced with overwhelming evidence seeming to point to Morck’s obvious guilt.

While Locked In contains many characters, both new and old, for this reader, Locked In turned out to be one of the more favored and reader-accessible novels in the series.

Locked In also finally reveals those involved in Carl, Anker, and Hardy’s shooting, and while on the path in doing so, Adler-Olsen sprinkles out just enough information to keep the reader guessing until the very end.

Readers will also be glad to learn Netflix has optioned a Department Q series, although, the setting is to be changed from Demark to Scotland.

Netgalley provided an ARC in return for a fair review.

Carl has never been the most popular detective. Yet he has a loyal group of colleagues in Department Q. When an oversight leads to Carl's arrest and charge with a multitude of serious crimes these 3 detectives are the only ones in the department who believe in his innocence. Until, a group of people who Carl saved join in to uncover the conspiracy that has led to his downfall. In a complicated plot the reader tries to imagine how Morck will escape and clear his reputation Moreover, how will this beloved series reach its conclusion. I as a loyal reader was sorry to reach the end of the adventures of Depart,ment Q even though it reached a satisfactory ending.

4.5. A thrilling, but sad, conclusion to the Dept Q series. Carl has made many enemies over the years, which is now coming back to haunt him. Someone has framed him for a crime he did not commit, and he is now in prison. His trusty, but quirky, team at Dept Q work round the clock to try to clear his name before it is too late. Like all the books in the series- this is a non-stop page turner, with come somic relief provided by Rose and Assad when it is needed the most. I have thoroughly enjoyed this series and will greatly miss it. While the crimes have always been grisly in nature, the humanity of the team, warts and all, always shines through. Farewell Carl, Rose, and Assad- it has been a fabulous run and you will be greatly missed!!!!!

Solid. Like most end-of-a-series books, this one is a bit of an homage to the characters and past cases tackled by Department Q, but if you've gotten 10 books in, this is earned indulgence. Adler-Olsen wraps up the varying storylines nicely, if at times a bit unbelievably (a rocket launch at a prison?!), but this is not unfamiliar ground for Department Q, either. All in all a satisfying finish to a worthy series.

I have long been a fan of the Department Q series, this one however threw me for a loop!

Carl has been arrested and can the team solve the mystery with him behind bars? Will Carl survive behind bars?

I am not going to give any clues away, but I will say that I suspected several of the wrong characters... and the twists towards the end picked up the pace significantly! (It was a bit slow going before that.)

The biggest twist was the ending, which I did not at all imagine... or see coming! This book did neatly tie up all the loose ends from the prior Dept. Q installments.

All that being said, I found this to be a solid 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars and this really is not a stand alone novel... you have to read the previous installments before reading this one.

I would like to thank Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton | Dutton for the digital copy of this novel. It was published December 3, 2024.

Locked in is the first novel in a while that I could not put down until I could not stay awake. For me, I am certain, it was extra rich reading because I have always been a huge fan of Olsen's Department Q novels, even when the villains do things so far out of any human being's comfort zone that I question my humanity for enjoying them. Carl Morck is 55. Department Q, made up of Carl, Rose, Gordon and Assad is now tasked with solving its worst case ever, except it's self assigned. You see, through all of the Department Q series, there are references to a case that tore apart an earlier team Carl was on, a group of dear friends who were blindsided at a crime scene by people there to kill them. Ankar died. Hardy was permanently paralyzed. In fact, through much of the series, Hardy lives with Carl and has caretakers. We know that Carl has always blamed himself for Hardy's condition, because he never pulled his gun when they were ambushed. Over time, he's tried to piece together the case they were working on at the time and how things went so wrong.

If you have read the series, the case that led to the shooting at three police officers involved a lot of deaths by use of a nail gun. It creeps in and out of Carl's mind, into conversations and so on through many of the novels and maybe all of them. But you never can put together the whole story and make sense of it. Because Carl cannot make sense of it. So, in Locked In, things come to a head and when it is over, you will understand the nail gun case. We know already that In the course of the active nail gun investigation, Ankar asked Carl to store a suitcase for him in his attic. This was many years ago, now and Ankar is, of course, dead. Carl didn't even remember the suitcase existed, but it's been located in his house and it contains bundles of money, illegal drugs and Carl's and Ankar's fingerprints on items inside. And now, Carl is in jail and people are trying to kill him. The media is having a heyday. His boss, Marcus has turned on him, feeling devastated, angry and betrayed by Carl's involvement in crimes where people were getting murdered and drugs were being smuggled by police officers.

Marcus orders Department Q staff to stay away from the case and not to go see Carl in jail. Even though there are attempts on Carl's life, Marcus refuses to get involved, even to help get Carl away from the general population and into protective custody. Eventually, Carl, along with a man who saved him from another attempt on his life, gets moved to a prison that is supposed to be safer. But it plainly is not safer for a guy with a price on his head. Meanwhile, Department Q and Carl's wife Mona are actively involved and taking volunteers to help with Carl's case. As usual, Olsen brings back many familiar characters and introduces more, always giving them enough dimension to be memorable.

Department Q novels have given us the complex stories of each member's lives over the years. Assad is unusually gifted at certain kinds of field work, having been trained and involved in some sort of violence and intrigue in the Middle East, possibly Syria. His wife, two daughters and sone were held in his homeland for many years after he escaped. In Locked In, Assad is deeply involved in the attempts to protect Carl's life and seek more information on the villains as the story unfolds. People who have read all the books will take more than one trip down memory lane when folks show up in the Carl Morck volunteer brigade.

There are villains I don't think I've met pulling the strings. You will recognize some problematic people from past novels. Among other things, helping Carl becomes a messy and chaotic matter of seat of the pants after careful planning work with communications lapsing and suspicions growing. People Carl has helped start to pitch in. There are several great side-trips as the criminal organization itself begins to self-destruct and eat its own. There is a moving piece on Assad's teenaged son who was so traumatized by his years of imprisonment that he cannot communicate but has begun screaming a lot due to pain from an injury. While his mother and sisters are adjusting to Denmark, he is not able to begin a recovery, to feel safe. He may have been brain damaged. Something is very wrong. It's a short part of the book, but memorable when Assad takes his son out with him to look for someone in order to give his family a break from all the yelling.

I cannot go into a lot of details and it sure looks like this is the last book of the series. Every single entry was a 4-5 star marvel and the characters and settings in Denmark, the writing and the translating were all superb. You absolutely can read Locked in as a stand alone book and you will not believe you are missing anything important at all. But if you can make yourself read these in order, the depth the characters take on will make you appreciate Locked In even more. Highly recommend and very distressed if there will truly be no more Department Q.

When I finished the last book in the dept Q series I vowed not to read this, the last one. The previous two books had been a struggle for me due to poor translation that just did not make sense in places. Also the characters had lost the initial spark that they held in the first books. As you can see I did read the last in the series and was pleased to find the translation was perfect, although I found once again the characters had lost their spark for me, they weren’t as funny and as appealing as in the first books.
Locked In sees Carl Morck in prison for being part of a drug ring, after a suitcase with drugs and money is found in his wardrobe, in fact his friend and partner at the time had asked him to hold it for him and he had never thought of it again. Now that he is in prison someone wants him dead and it is a race for Assad, Rose and Gordon to uncover what is really going on before Carl is killed. A good read with quite a few characters to get your head around but I am pleased I made it to the end of the series.

#LockedIn. #NetGalley

What a dramatic and action-packed conclusion to the Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen! This tenth and final book in the series is translated by Caroline Waight. Detective Carl Morck, the leader of Department Q, the small cold case division in Copenhagen, Denmark is arrested the last week in December in 2020. After fifteen years, a violent and unsolved case from his past is suddenly crashing down around him. He’s charged with drug trafficking and murder along with other charges, but he’s innocent. Who is framing him and who has put a bounty on his head?

Most of Carl’s colleagues turn their backs on him. However, his small team of Rose, Assad, and Gordon defy orders and investigate with some trusted friends. But can they prove his innocence before Carl is killed?

Every character seemed to come alive. Readers get a great sense of what they value in life and how they approach their days. Carl is stoic, impatient, filled with a sense of honor, and uninterested in material goods. However, he is feeling somewhat helpless as he is locked away without resources to investigate. His character has depth and this reader immediately reconnected with him. The other characters are well rounded and readers get a sense of their professional and personal lives.

While the initial prologue takes place in 2005, the remaining portions of the novel progress from December 26, 2020 through January 11, 2021. While there are several of points of view throughout the story, the transitions are smooth, the flow is good, and the viewpoint characters are well identified. However, it does help if you have read the prior books. The novel takes place during the pandemic. Unlike the last book, in this one, the pandemic didn’t seem to add to the difficulties and complexities of the investigation.

This author has a way of drawing in readers with a great mix of characterization, world-building, and a breathtaking plot. He is a superb storyteller. Suspense and plot twists combine with action and emotional scenes leading up to a fantastic showdown and an ending that wraps everything up satisfactorily. The past and the present collide in this well-written and pulse-pounding crime thriller. Woven into the story are themes of greed, attempted murder, murder, desperation to help others, friendship, corruption, family, and much more.

Overall, this is a gripping, thought-provoking, and dynamic story that kept me turning the pages rapidly. I am sorry to see this series has ended. However, I am looking forward to the author’s next novel. Those who enjoy well-done police procedurals and crime thrillers will likely enjoy this book. Several books in the series have also been adapted into movies.

PENGUIN GROUP Dutton - Dutton and Jussi Adler-Olsen provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The publication date is currently set for December 03, 2024. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.

In the last installment of the Department Q series, we go back to the beginning to learn how it all started. 9 books ago Carl Morck was trying to come back from watching his partner killed in front of his eyes and his other colleague paralyzed by the attack on the police officers. Carl, haunted by the attack and no longer at the top of his game and was put in the basement of the station and given his own department - Department Q which was to solve cold crimes that no one else cared about. He was given a rag tag group of reports (Assad, Rose and Gordon) who added depth and humor to the dark Scandinavian noir series. In this final book, Carl is stuck in prison, accused with crimes associated with the original attack while his department, friends and characters who he has saved in past novels - fight to exonerate him while simultaneously protecting him (since there is a million dollar bounty on his head).

I have loved and recommended this series from the beginning (and apparently it will become a Netflix series shortly - there were movies of some of the novels in Denmark). I started it right after I read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books (I was looking for a similar feel) and was hooked. This last book was a great, almost Hollywood-like ending to the decade old series. This wasn’t my favorite of these novels but it was the full circle closure fans like me needed (and didn’t realize we were looking for). Old characters returned and the original attack that started the series is finally solved. This one definitely read slower for me than some of the others and I would suggest reading them in order, but if you like thrillers, this is a great series and I love closure! I enjoyed the entire wild and quirky ride that I have been on since 2011 with Department Q!

Thank you to Dutton Books and NetGalley for the ARC to review

Picking up right where The Shadow Murders left off, Carl Mørck finds himself being arrested and sent immediately to prison for the suitcase full of illicit goods his deceased former partner asked him to hold onto. As Mørck is held while the investigation into him ensues, he tries desperately to figure out who could have been after him and to remember just what happened that fateful day years ago when he and his partners were ambushed. When the criminal cabal behind everything sends assassins to take Mørck out while in custody, he soon finds unexpected allies both within the prison and on the outside as they try to save Carl and find the true culprits behind everything.
It's sad to see this wonderful series come to an end. But Jussi Adler-Olsen ends it with one of the best Department Q books of them all, and really brings the drama, action and surprises as Carl Mørck's story finally comes full circle.

Locked In, by Jussi Adler-Olsen, is the final book in the Department Q mystery series set in Denmark. You absolutely should read the other Department Q novels before this one; you won't be dissapointed!

This final book finds Carl, lead Department Q detective, arrested and jailed under suspicion of murder and drug trafficking, stemming from the discovery of a drug filled suitcase in his attic. To make matters worse, it seems the organization behind the drug trade thinks Carl will talk, so they are trying to eliminate him.

As Department Q tries to investigate behind Jacobsen's back, Carl's allies from prior novels band together to help solve the mystery - who set Carl up? And who is trying to eliminate him?

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to the publisher, the author, and to Netgalley.

I was very thrilled to read book 9 in the Department Q series this August (my review can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4814280808) .
So, I was very happy to receive a review copy of this tenth and last title in the series. It turned out that it would have been better had I read all books in the series first. This last one reads as if the author wanted to inform the readers about the many loose ends in previous books. I’m sure there were no real loose ends to spot, but now suddenly the whole books is full with people who suddenly have memories about things that happened almost twenty years ago and that have come back with one purpose: to put Carl in jail and preferably have him murdered there.
Of course his colleagues from Department Q won’t let that happen (the murder, that is) and they set to work to solve this case. Unofficially that is because Marcus Jacobsen doesn’t want them to. As I’ve seen some of the tv-series, I would recognize certain people who suddenly turned up but to be honest I’m not really impressed. The ending is really a very good one and I promised myself that one day I will read all books in order and make notes so as to understand this last one in the series better. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4814280808t
Thanks to Dutton and Netgalley for this review copy.

I must start by thanking both NetGalley and Dutton publishing for my eARC in exchange for my honest review.
The final Department Q novel, and not his best. Reintroducing some characters from the past, this really feels like a wrap up of what was a mystery series well worth resding.

This was by far the most interesting case that Carl had becoming the victim and also the better man that was needed to take on the drug mob. It starts out with Carl going into one prison has two incidents with killers. Then gets shipped to another prison and meets a criminal who he ends up saving his brother. All this time his first case with Department Q brings him a women that he saved offering a multi-million offer to help Carl. We have Assad, Rose, and Gordon which are the rest of Department Q, were told not to help with this case. There was a killer on the loose which bombed Carl in the second prison he was in. Carl got a way and found Hardy who was badly injured in the nail-gun case. You'll have to read the rest for yourself which will bring you into all the scenarios which Jussi brings into to get you excited. I recommend this book to all those who like Jussi.

Thanks to netgalley and the penguin group Dutton for this ARC. Due to be published 03/12/2024.

The character switch from one chapter to the next meant that you had different perspectives throughout. It did take me a few chapters to settle into the story.

There's a lot going on throughout the book so I felt I could put it down as I didn't want to lose momentum, particularly as there's a few twists later on. Carl has been dealt a bad hand and his supporters are fiercely standing up for him which shows that he's held in high regard. Despite this, it's still a tough road to travel and he's up against so many unknown people that you do find yourself querying who to trust and if people are who they say they are.

It pains me to write this review and not just because, after 10 volumes and 17 years, the excellent Department Q Series comes to an end. It was hard because I didn’t love it. Long-running series usually include one novel in which the hero is falsely accused and locked out of the investigation. I’m not a fan of this trope. Locked In brings the overarching story of Carl Morck and his peripheral involvement in the nail gun murders to a close. I couldn’t remember some of the details, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what was happening. Adler-Olsen recaps just enough to remind readers without falling into repetition. It was also nice to see how far the main characters have gone, from Assad cleaning the dingy basement office to him kicking everyone’s butt; and Rose turned into the backbone of Department Q. But, while it was nice to see many secondary characters back, some of them fall by the wayside and disappear in the middle of the book. It makes sense that they’re brought back only to say goodbye so there’s no need to keep them long. But there are other characters who are new, and get introduced only to be forgotten without a resolution to their subplot. A MacGuffin is painfully inserted as a plot device but it’s forgotten in the middle of the book with no repercussions. One of my favorite things about the series was how the author planted a clue as a throwaway line in the middle of a random chapter that then became huge in the end. This is not the case here. I loved the ending, which reminded me of why I enjoyed the series so much. So we bid adieu to Carl Morck in a bittersweet ending, knowing that we can always go back to the beginning to revisit all his cases.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/PENGUIN GROUP Dutton | Dutton.

I can't believe Department Q has solved its last case! In an exceptionally satisfying conclusion, Adler-Olsen has pulled together all the loose strings and reinvigorated so many previous characters in this final adventure.

I must confess that I found the beginning a little dense. There are a LOT of perspectives and a lot of new (and old!) characters who have their own tales to tell in order to bring everything to a head. I started reading these books a decade ago, and there were so many details that got muddied and lost in that time. I never felt like I was having difficulty following things though, which I chalk up to the author's magnificent skill at providing just enough information to remind you of the essential bits of previous cases and interactions. I'm sure it's a different read if you go into them all straight through and suspect I'll have to do that one of these days to see what I missed.

The chapter-by-chapter perspective shift was, at times, dizzying and did occasionally slow the pacing for me - from about 25% in until about the 50% mark. From there on out I literally flew through the story as revelations, secrets, lies, and more Assad-isms came flying at me fast and furious. I LOVED the way things played out. I did not see the ultimate Big Bad's identity coming at first, and when I finally figured it out (just in the nick of time, as was the case with Carl), I was delighted by the obfuscation and subterfuge that filled the previous novels.

This was a marvelous series. I'm sad to see it end, but it ended so beautifully that I can't be upset - and will just have to wait to see what magic Adler-Olsen comes up with next!

This is one of my favorite series and this book is amazingly good.

Department Q is back again but without their illustrious leader. Carl Morck has found himself where he always sends the bad guys….behind bars, and set up in such an intricate way there appears there is no way out. Don’t underestimate his coworkers in the Department and those whom are alive today due to his extraordinary detective skills. Together they will band together in a thrilling police drama with enough action to keep you reading long past your bedtime.

Will Carl be exonerated? Will the real culprit be exposed? Tighten your seatbelt!

Highly recommended!

An intricate mystery with several plot lines and a cast of hundreds. This book takes a lot of brain power to keep track of the many threads and characters running through it. Department Q has always been a fascinating part of the police in Denmark. Carl has been imprisoned. From there, we are taken on a long hike to find out what that is all about. Tied up nicely at the end.