The Scarred Woman (A Department Q Novel)

The Scarred Woman is the seventh novel in Jussi Adler-Olsen's series about Danish detectives holed up in the basement of Copenhagen's police headquarters, ostensibly to work on cold cases. Like the six books that preceded it, it tells the story of how the small team in Department Q takes on several homicide cases simultaneously and discovers—lo and behold!—that they're all connected. In the process, all three of Detective Carl Mørck's "assistants," Asaad, Rose, and Gordon, manage to infuriate and astound him in new and sometimes highly creative ways. It's just possible, we might guess, that all three of them are at least as smart as he is, if not more so. Meanwhile, Mørck infuriates his own boss, and practically everyone else in the police force. He's always in trouble for insubordination, shaming his superiors, defying orders, stealing someone else's cases, or simply showing up all his colleagues with his (or perhaps his team's) brilliance. But somehow he always manages to evade being fired.

The Scarred Woman merges an in-depth exploration of Rose's mental illness with a tale of the team's investigation into three homicide cases and a night club heist. We've known for some time that Rose is not well. Now, we learn just how seriously ill she really is.

The titles of the six previous novels in Adler-Olsen's series all relate closely to the contents. But I can't figure out who "the scarred woman" is. I'm also put off by the author's exaggerated portrayal of so many of his characters. More than in the previous novels in the Department Q series, several of the key figures in the story come across as cartoonish. One, Rose's father, is particularly difficult to believe. Apparently, Adler-Olsen was off his game when he wrote this one.

Oh, and one more thing: the author's writing displays a bonehead error that any competent editor or translator (or, for that matter, the author himself) should have caught: again and again, his characters address each other by name. Obviously, Adler-Olsen wants to be sure the reader understands who's speaking to whom—or perhaps simply to remind himself. But there are far better ways to achieve that; more attentive novelists have found ways. It was this unfortunate error, as much as anything else, that caused me to stop reading Cara Black's Aimee Leduc detective series set in Paris. I find the practice extremely annoying.

Previously, I've reviewed all six of the earlier novels in this series, and all of them more favorably.

The Department Q series was one of my favorites and I was looking forward to this latest installment. I couldn’t possibly be more disappointed - to the extent that I couldn’t even be bothered to finish it (something that almost never happens with me). I am simply dumbfounded by how terrible this book is in comparison to the earlier ones. How can this happen? Was I a fool for liking the earlier ones so much? Is it not the same writer? So confused.

At least halfway through the book, I no longer cared about any of the characters that made this series enjoyable. Nothing of interest happened, unless you count painfully repetitive instances of office politics and budgets. Day after day. The same thing. The plot goes nowhere at all. As far as I can tell, the “plot” of this book involves welfare fraud, a disillusioned social worker, and features the Danish public assistance system in a starring role...which is about as compelling as you’d imagine. The author (if not a ghostwriter) has given up, so I did too.

The Department Q series was one of my favorites and I was looking forward to this latest installment. I couldn’t possibly be more disappointed - to the extent that I couldn’t even be bothered to finish it (something that almost never happens with me). I am simply dumbfounded by how terrible this book is in comparison to the earlier ones. How can this happen? Was I a fool for liking the earlier ones so much? Is it not the same writer? So confused.

At least halfway through the book, I no longer cared about any of the characters that made this series enjoyable. Nothing of interest happened, unless you count painfully repetitive instances of office politics and budgets. Day after day. The same thing. The plot goes nowhere at all. As far as I can tell, the “plot” of this book involves welfare fraud, a disillusioned social worker, and features the Danish public assistance system in a starring role...which is about as compelling as you’d imagine. The author (if not a ghostwriter) has given up, so I did too.

This theme of Denmark welfare dysfunction, perhaps applicable to all Scandinavian social strata,
presents striking roles and conflicts between faceless bureaucrats and lost children portrayed as
grotesque Barby Dolls with little to lose when drifting into violence with nothing to stop them..The
presentation of the characters reflecting welfare as a blueprint for mischief or much worse is what
carries the novel.I have read all of the Department Q books and continue to find Carl and his cast
so unique and fun that the books just never disappoint. But a major flaw lies in extensive passages
about the demise of Rose and the solving of the murder of her malignant father..This huge chunk was
not worthy of any significance or reader interest and damaged plot appeal and pacing beyond repair..

Compared to the other books by Adler Olsen, The Scarred Woman was disappointing. Adler Olsen is one of my favorite authors mainly because I love the interaction between Carl Morck, Assad and Rose. This book concentrated on the serial murderer and Rose's mental condition. I still have a chapter or two to read but I don't think Adler Oslen's readers really wanted to spend so much time on Rose and her suicidal tendencies. She has been a brilliant member of the team in other books. Please! Let's get back to detective crime stories.

The first few in this series were excellent but the last couple have been tedious. This seems to definitely be a case of an author running out of ideas. The plot was a jumble of different threads with no surprises of significance or twists. Did I miss something? Didn't Rose take a concoction of pills? I couldn't wait to get done. The second star is for the likability of the characters even though we didn't learn anything new other than Rose being insane.

Despite a number of coincidences happening through the story, this is a great read. None of the police characters take themselves too seriously and the girls and women are pure camp. In the end everything fits together ... without a big shoot-em-up like most police procedural books.

Could hardly wait for the new book by Jussi Adler-Olsen book to come out. So excited I forked over $14.95 without a moments hesitation. Not at all like his other dept. Q novels. In fact, I was so bored I never finished it.

Love the Department Q series but this was too drawn out - seriously needed some aggressive editing. And the skipping about in time for the first third of the book was distracting and did not sharpen the storytelling.

I have a hard time believing Jussi Adler-Olsen wrote this book; have read all of his Department Q books and this one seemed so amateur-ish, poorly written and the story lines were horrible. Very disappointed as I look forward to reading about Carl, Assad and the Department Q team. This book was agony to get through and I only finished it because I kept hoping it would make a turn for the better.

Others have commented already that the quality of his writing has gone down precipitously. I should have stopped with the last installment, but hoped against hope this one would be better. It's not. Time to give up Dept. Q, dear author.