Mercy

Mercy

Jussi Adler-Olsen

$29.95

This book has just arrived in-store and I wanted to review it immediately as I read it some weeks back and it is fabulous. Set in Copenhagen, it follows detective Carl Morck as he comes to terms with being relegated to creating a ‘new’ department after a disastrous last case in the Homicide Division in which colleagues were killed and another left permanently disabled. Morck’s first case (which no-one expects him to solve) is one of missing person, Merete Lynggaard, who was last seen five years earlier. She was a government minister about whom little was known beyond her public persona.

The reader realises very early in the novel that Merete is in fact still alive but imprisoned. Carl has no sense of this, assuming he is on the hunt for a body and an explanation for murder.

This is a thoroughly original novel that so captivates the reader as to make him/her feel unease through the chapters depicting Merete’s imprisonment and how she is responding to what has befallen her. Morck’s fall from grace, his demons over what happened to his colleagues, and his refusal to allow his bosses sideline him are wonderfully represented.

A confronting but absolutely riveting novel, this is also the first in a series of four books to feature Morck.