Have you ever had one of those friends that you rarely see, but every time you do get together, it is like no time had passed? You pick right up where you left off, sometimes even gossiping about the same people who obsessed you both years ago. You still finish each other's sentences and laugh at the same jokes.
That is how I feel about characters in certain mystery series. Even when I have ignored a series for a book or two, picking up on their stories with the latest entry gives me that same reassuring feeling that this is a friendship worth continuing.
Tonight I'd like to share the continuing adventures of two very different types of friends.
The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel
Published by Dutton
September 9th 2014
484 pages
I didn't finish The Purity of Vengeance which is book #4 in this series for some reason, but since it is still on my kindle I may yet get back to it. This is one of those series that is designed to be read in sequence because the main characters of Department Q do change over time.
Which is why I like it.
Introduced to us in Keeper of Lost Causes (reviewed here), Carl Morck is in charge of the cold case unit known as Department Q. It was established after a crime scene shooting that left one of his partners dead and another permanently paralyzed. Morck escaped with a bullet graze and a heavy dose of survivors' guilt.
Cynical and sardonic, Morck works out of his basement unit with his trusty aide Hafez el-Assad who provides comic relief as well as a touch of mystery. Few things are revealed of this Syrian émigré during the investigation covered in The Absent One (review). But Morck gains a new employee, Rose Knudsen, who finished her training at the police academy but failed the driving test. And she is just as strange as that sounds.
Adler-Olsen has a clear fondness for recurring characters that are slightly off-beat, which may be due to growing up as the son of a sexologist who took his family with him as he served in mental institutions.
The three members of Department Q work well together in A Conspiracy of Faith (link), if we accept Rose's personality disorder as normal.
The Purity of Vengeance was released in the states on December 31, 2013, and dealt with a 1950s movement in Denmark to sterilize wayward girls, a brothel owner who goes missing in the 80s and new evidence in the case that sent Carl to Department Q in The Keeper of Lost Causes.
In The Marco Effect, the team is joined by a new member, meant as much to spy on the operation for Morck's new boss and old nemesis, Lars Bjorn, as to serve as an intern. Gordon Thomas, a law school student, falls passionately in lust with Rose Knudsen as soon as he joins Department Q.
But before the reader gets to Department Q, we learn of a murder in Africa, a bank operating as a criminal enterprise and a "family" of beggars who work the streets of Copenhagen. (Apparently the looser borders of the EU has led to an influx of organized beggars who work for criminal syndicates.) As usual, Adler-Olsen tells his story on multiple tracks before tying them all together in the end.
The bankers, badly hurt by the 2008 crash, devise a very neat scheme for embezzling funds from the Danish Development Agency's work in Africa. When it looks like their activities may be exposed, they turn to a criminal gypsy-type gang to get rid of the civil servant, William Stark, who has been investigating them.
It is from this clan, headed by his ruthless uncle Zola, that Marco Jamison escapes. A twelve-year-old boy, Marco dreams of going to school, becoming a Danish citizen and leaving the grifting, begging life behind. On the night of his escape, he falls into a hastily dug grave, not realizing who the dead man is or how far his uncle will go to prevent him from revealing the grave's existence. For three years Marco lives on the streets, just barely staying one step ahead of the clan.
Naturally, the cold case file for William Stark finds its way to Carl Morck's desk with the assistance of Assad and Rose.
I enjoyed this entry into the series, but admit that it could have done with one or two fewer close calls for Marco. At a certain point, for me, the tension lessened due to the repetition and I found my thoughts drifting away from the story. But Jussi Adler-Olsen does such a terrific job of exploring Danish society, capitalism, immigration, and social justice that I will continue to follow his work.
The other old friend that I visited with has retired as Chief Homicide Inspector of the Sûreté du Québec and is now happily ensconced in the magic village of Three Pines.
The Long Way Home (Chief Inspector Gamache)
by Louise Penny
Published by Minotaur Books
August 26th 2014
384 pages
The Long Way Home is not really a murder mystery. It is a search for a missing person, one Peter Morrow, husband of Clara Morrow.
Peter was a fairly successful artist who supported his wife, somewhat humbly, with what he earned as an artist. Clara, after years of work, was finally discovered by the art world. Her success overshadowed Peter's own and led to tension in the marriage. Unable to cope with his wife's growing fame, Peter began to sabotage her work and emotions. Finally, Clara asked for a twelve-month separation.
That was over a year ago. Peter never showed up for the planned reunion dinner and Clara turns to Armand Gamache for help. Now retired, and enjoying his peaceful life with Reine-Marie and their German Shepherd, Henry, in Three Pines, Gamache is not eager to become involved. But with Myrna, and Jean Guy, who is visiting the Gamaches with Annie, Gamache agrees to help find Peter.
Off to an intriguing start, the novel then bogs down in some pretty strange search techniques and some in-depth discussions of art and art theory. I like art, and in her past work I enjoyed Penny's digressions into the world of art, but this sometimes veered into lecture mode. Those who know more about the field would probably enjoy this more than I did.
During the search for Peter, it becomes necessary for the team to actually travel to some spots that one would think could be done virtually, or using modern communication techniques. And while Louise Penny's writing skills make visiting some of these places a pleasure, and much as I love to travel, I was never sure exactly why the visits were necessary.
I was also disappointed in the backseat role given to Armand Gamache. Clara was allowed to lead the investigation which did not make a lot of sense to me when the foursome included a couple of the best investigative minds in the province. There was also a thing about cabin assignments on a boat that left me puzzled. I am sure that there was something significant in these role reversals, but I completely missed it.
Sadly, Armand and Reine-Marie spent almost no time together in this novel and I had hoped to see more of their relationship after his retirement. Instead, he is off chasing the trail of someone else's spouse, and while Reine-Marie has a role to play, it was a minor one.
For reviews of some of the other books in this series, which I enjoyed a lot more, please see this, this and this.
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