Victim 2117: A Department Q Novel

In bestseller Adler-Olsen’s suspenseful eighth Department Q novel featuring Copenhagen’s cold-case division (after 2017’s The Scarred Woman), journalist Joan Aiguader hopes to revive his reputation with coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis by focusing on an unidentified woman whose corpse washed up on Cyprus; the victim was the 2,117th person to drown in the Mediterranean that year. Those aspirations are dashed when Joan’s editor reveals that the woman was actually fatally stabbed, a missed detail that embarrassed the newspaper that ran his story. Photos of those nearby at the time the body reached land leads Department Q mainstay Assad to believe that family members he thought dead are still alive. Meanwhile, a recluse has fixated on an image of Victim 2117 and begins calling the squad to announce that, once he’s killed his 2,117th person in his violent online game, he will murder for real, triggering a desperate race to avoid bloodshed. Series fans will relish Assad’s gripping backstory. Adler-Olsen does a masterly job juggling plotlines. (Mar.)