The Keeper of Lost Causes Rocks!

I used a very scientific method for choosing my current read: I took a picture of a stack of books and told my sister to pick one. Sure the one she chose was simply because it was the one she wanted me to send her next, but her pick has turned out to be pretty good. I made it just past the hundred page hurdle last night. It's a teen read. It doesn't come out until November. I'll post about it further down the line.

But... I always have past reads to post about and this is one that I should have put up the same week that I read it. (In my defense, it's only been two weeks and I did review it for the BB.) It was pretty freaking fabulous!

Jussi Adler-Olsen's The Keeper of Lost Causes is yet another of the hugely popular Scandinavian mystery/thrillers to be released on this side of the pond. I'd not actually heard anything about this one until about a week before it's release, and then it was everywhere! Shelf Awareness even did a devoted installment of their newsletter all about it. Of course my curiosity was thoroughly piqued and I had to have it.

Carl Morck has only been back on the job for a week after being shot in the line of duty. His attitude stinks and his patience is thin. The department has a great idea about getting him out of their hair, though. Local politicians are pushing for a measure that would add a new department devoted to cold cases: Department Q. And with the new department comes more funding. Morck is chosen to head up the new arm, relegated to an out-of-the-way office in the basement, and given a stack of case files and an assistant. The first case they begin working is a five-year-old missing person's involving a local politician who disappeared while on a day trip with her brother. No witnesses were ever found and the case was eventually unofficially deemed a suicide. As Morck and Assad unravel the clues and uncover new leads, they don't know that the woman in question is still very much alive. How much longer she can hold out is another thing entirely.

Not only was this a fantastic mystery, it's one of the best translations I've read in years! I can't wait for more from this series. Morck is yet another character recently added to my favorites list. He's kind of an ass, to be honest. Thing is, he's a bit brilliant in a not-so-bumbling-as-Columbo way. The kicker is that it's when he puts his mind to it, and often to show up a fellow officer. Much of Dept Q's early discoveries are thanks to Assad, who has way more of a backstory to be covered in subsequent books.

And it's dark. The crime in question is completely twisted and the lead up to the end is intense. Amazingly, the reader knows the missing woman is alive, which gives the book something of an urgent pacing. Consider yourself warned -- you will be up late with this one!

(Note: pubbed as Mercy in the UK)