The Absent One

Adler-Olsen, Denmark’s leading crime fiction author, outdoes his outstanding debut, Keeper of Lost Causes, with his second Department Q novel. No one knows how prickly Copenhagen Deputy Det. Supt. Carl Morck, the head of Department Q, which handles cold cases, received the file about the 1987 murder of an 18-year-old brother and a 17-year-old sister in a summer cottage. At the time suspicion fell on six boarding-school friends, but the police could find no evidence. Nine years later, a member of that group, the only one who had been on scholarship, confessed and went to prison. Morck and his misfit assistants, Assad and Rose, discover that the blood lust of those same students, now wealthy leaders of society, has not abated. These men fear only one thing—a homeless woman who used to be part of their gang. An insightful look at ruthless people seduced by violence and hiding behind their wealth fuels the surprise-filled plot. Morck’s life is never simple, whether it involves office politics, stymied investigations, or guilt over his paralyzed partner. Agent: Sarah Hunt Cooke, international rights director at Penguin UK. (Aug.)