As of: February 7, 2024, 3:19 p.m
By: Sven Trautwein
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Jussi Adler-Olsen, one of Denmark's best-known thriller authors, concludes his series.
The series from Special Department Q at a glance.
1 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Betrayed” – Volume 10: On Boxing Day 2020. Carl Mørck sits in handcuffs in the back seat of a police car on the way to Vestre Prison.
After 15 years, an old case has caught up with him, and charges of drug smuggling and murder threaten to destroy his life and career. His colleagues in the Copenhagen police turn their backs on him.
It soon becomes clear that Carl's life is in acute danger among the imprisoned violent criminals, fraudsters and corrupt officials.
But who put a million-dollar bounty on Carl's head - and why?
While Carl Mørck fights blindly against the henchmen of the unknown mastermind, Rose, Assad and Gordon must try to untangle the long, complicated threads of the old case.
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2 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Sodium Chloride” - Volume 9: “Am I talking to Carl Mørck?
Our forensic scientist found something in two graves today that might interest you: salt.
It almost seems as if the corpses had been salted.
Does that make any sense?”A woman commits suicide on her 60th birthday.
Her death leads to the reopening of a cold case from 1988 that brought Marcus Jacobsen together with his best investigator Carl Mørck.
Carl, Assad, Rose and Gordon have no idea that the case is pushing Special Department Q to its limits: for three decades, people have fallen victim to a cunning serial killer who kills without any evidence of murder being proven.
The first clue leads the team deep into a system of perverted morals and boundless contempt for humanity.
And the investigators have to hurry because time is running out... © dtv
3 / 10Jussi Adler Olsen “Victim 2117” – Volume 8: “The dead woman on the beach in Ayia Napa still had a hint of red on her lips.
How beautiful she had been.
Even if deep wrinkles in her face gave an idea of why she had made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.
Assad froze..."A dead woman from the Middle East washes up on the coast of Cyprus: on the tablet of shame in Barcelona, where the number of refugees drowned in the sea is displayed, she is 'Victim 2117'.
But she didn't drown - she was murdered!
Her photo also ends up in the Copenhagen special department via a winding path. Q: When Assad sees the picture of the dead woman, he collapses.
Because he knew her all too well.
A highly emotional case for Detective Inspector Carl Mørck and his team, which not only pushes Assad to his limits.
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4 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Selfies” – Volume 7: “Faces stared at them from everywhere: ‘Make the sign of the cross over us if you want to block the path of evil,’ they shouted.
'Protect yourself against the abyss, but hurry, because you don't have much time.'" An old woman is found murdered in a park in Copenhagen.
Almost at the same time, a crazy driver is on a deadly hunt for young women.
Somewhere out there, it seems, more perfidious crimes are being planned.
As it turns out, there is a connection to a particularly explosive cold case.
Now of all times, Carl Mørck's assistant Rose is feeling very bad.
As she fights her own battle, Carl, Assad and Gordon face their biggest challenge yet.
But failure is not an option.
© dtv
5 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Promise” – Volume 6: A dead woman was hanging upside down in a tree, and no one knows what happened back then.
For seventeen years, Police Commissioner Habersaat tried to investigate the young woman's tragic death.
But now, shortly after he asks Special Branch Q for help, he dies in a shocking way.
The research leads Carl Mørck and his team to the island of Öland and to a case that puts them all in mortal danger.
© dtv
6 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Expectation” - Volume 5: Marco is fifteen and hates his life in a clan whose members are forced into crime by their violent leader Zola.
As he flees, he comes across a man's corpse very close to Zola's residence...The search for the murderer leads detective Carl Mørck, Assad and Rose deep into the network of the Copenhagen underworld, into the swamp of corruption and serious crimes Politics and the world of finance - and extends into the African jungle.
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7 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Contempt” – Volume 4: In November 1985, Nete Rosen meets the gynecologist Curt Wad during a reception.
In front of the guests, Wad humiliates the woman, whose horrific past no one seems to know anything about.
What happened to her on the island of Sprogø still haunts her.
The chance encounter stirs everything up again and sets in motion a series of cruel events... In 2010, Special Department Q in Copenhagen came across the file of a woman who was reported missing in 1987: Rita Nielsen.
Research shows that five more people have disappeared since 1987.
Curt Wad soon becomes the focus of the investigation, as he cruelly mistreated his patients and carried out forced sterilizations.
Detective Inspector Carl Mørck and his assistants Assad and Rose investigate one of their most bizarre cold cases.
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8 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Redemption” – Volume 3: Nobody had noticed the weathered message in a bottle, the cry for help inside had gone unheard.
Years later, the faded document ends up in Special Department Q in Copenhagen, the Danish murder squad for cold cases.
Material analysis shows that the message was written with human blood.
Deciphering the letters leads Carl Mørck and his assistant Assad on the trail of a horrific crime - and into areas of society that seem somewhat alien to both of them... © dtv
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9 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Desecration” – Volume 2: A body was found in a summer house in Rørvig, in eastern Denmark.
Suspicion falls on a group of young students at an exclusive private boarding school who are known for their sadistic orgies of violence.
Only one of them confesses to the double murder. Twenty years later.
When Detective Inspector Carl Mørck comes back from vacation, his assistant Assad bumps his nose into the dusty Rørvig file.
But the highest authorities prohibit them from further investigations.
The traces lead up to the highest levels of society.
And all the way down, to a homeless woman who seems to know something that changes everything... © dtv
10 / 10Jussi Adler-Olsen “Mercy” - Volume 1: On March 2, 2002, a woman disappeared without a trace on the ferry from Rødby to Puttgarden; it was assumed that she died by drowning.
But she is not dead, but is being held captive in a concrete prison.
Carl Mørck, Danish special investigator in the newly established Special Department Q, is initially not very enthusiastic about his new job.
Because it is clear to him: the success rate in solving cold cases is pitiful.
But his new Syrian assistant Hafez el-Assad is enthusiastic about the task and is determined to solve the case of the missing politician.
But the two of them have no idea that a breathless race against time will begin.
© dtv
The crime series by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen, which began in 2007 with special investigator Carl Mørck from Special Department Q of the Copenhagen police, comes to an end with the tenth volume.
The books from the far north, written in the tradition of Nordic Noir, have in the past always ensured high tension until the end.
Some of the captivating stories surrounding Carl Mørck and Hafez el-Assad have even been made into films.
Now the end of the series is approaching with “Betrayed”.
Jussi Adler-Olsen has been one of Denmark's best-known thriller authors for years.
He actually had no intention of becoming a best-selling author.
He has now sold more than 23 million books, as can be read here.
Click through the photo gallery.