{read: Danish thriller} The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen

I was eagerly anticipating The Absent One after enjoying the first one in the Department Q series, The Keeper of Lost Causes, and it made my fall TBR list. While it was enjoyable, it wasn't the pageturner that I was anticipating. I felt like I was plodding through it, waiting for the action to pick up.

Carl, the new head of Department Q, returns from vacation to find that a case with a conviction has landed on his desk. This is odd because Department Q, located in the basement, was created to investigate cold cases, not ones that were already solved. But the more he and his trusty sidekick Assad investigate, the more they realize that all is not as it seems. On the personal side, Carl has his own problems to contend with — a shooting that left one of his colleagues dead and the other paralyzed from the neck down, and for which he feels guilty. To add more drama, Carl and Assad get a new colleague, Rose, who has feminist views, and Carl begins to realize that Assad has a complex past.

One complaint I had about this book, in addition to its pacing, is that a female character, Kimmie, is motivated by a vicious gang rape in her past.  This is a predictable plot device, and I expected more from Adler-Olsen.

All of that being said, I'll still read the next one in this series when it gets translated.

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen (Dutton Adult, 2012)
My rating: 3 stars