Journal 64 - Jussi Adler-Olsen

[goodreads]

Title: Journal 64
Author: Jussi Adler-Olsen
Genre: Suspense
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 462
Date read: November, 2011

Abuse, violence and neglect was the norm on the small isolated island, where Danish women were deported and left to their minders' whims. When Rita Nielsen reached the island for the first time, nobody could know that she would be implicated in a drama that 55 years later would turn out to be Department Q's most complex case.

Carl, Assad and Rose stumble across the case almost by accident, and soon they realize that this is just a small piece of a much larger case, dealing with assault of the worst sort. Assaults that started more than half a century ago, but which turn out still to be going on.

A fascinating story involving racism and bigotry of the worst kind. Carl and Assad are really put to the test, when they meet influential people with opinions that were best suited to Nazi-Germany of the late 1930s and which any decent person should be ashamed to entertain.

The story was fast-paced like all of Jussi Adler-Olsen's novels, and the plot actually a good deal more believable than some of his previous novels. I did get very annoyed at times with Carl's lack of a spine when it came to dealing with Assad and Rose, but loved how he stood up to his soon-to-be-ex-wife.

But though the main plot of this novel got neatly tied up in the end, the eternal questions of Carl's initial murder case, and what on earth Assad was up to before he joined Department Q are still left unanswered, so the series obviously isn't over yet!

The first book in the series has been translated to English, so hopefully the rest will be too - I highly recommend it.