Julie's Review: A Conspiracy of Faith

Summary: Detective Carl Mørck has received a bottle that holds an old and decayed message written in blood. It’s a cry for help from two young brothers, tied and bound in a boathouse by the sea. After floating in the ocean for years before turning up, the bottle sat forgotten, unopened, on a police department windowsill, before the seal was cracked and the gruesome message, written in Danish, was analyzed. Could it be real? Who are these boys, and why weren’t they reported missing? Could they possibly still be alive? Carl’s investigation will force him to cross paths with a woman stuck in a desperate marriage: Her husband refuses to tell her where he goes, how long he will be away, what he does while he’s gone—or even what he does for a living. Isolated after choosing him over family and friends, she waits for days on end, and when he returns she must endure his wants, his moods, his threats. But enough is enough. She will find out the truth, no matter the cost to him—or to herself. In this heart-pounding thriller, Carl and his colleagues Assad and Rose must use every resource available to uncover the horrifying truth set adrift in that bottle all those years ago. ~powells.com

Review: I always look forward to a Department Q novel and am so thrilled that A Conspiracy of Faith is finally here! Being that this is the third in a series, I definitely recommend starting in the beginning because there are some character quirks and interpersonal relationships that take some background.

The case in this one is as dark as The Keeper of Lost Causes, if not a little harder to take since innocents are involved. The criminal suffered at the hands of his father and is now making those like his father suffer. If you have a hard time with any kind of violence against children, then this is not the book for you.

Assad continues to be a mystery and at this point I'd like a little more about him to come to light. He and Carl are the perfect yin/yang partners, even if Assad is just an assistant.

I enjoyed this one but it wasn't as tautly written as the previous two novel. I'll admit to having a hard time getting into at first. That being said, once the story got moving it was hard not to keep reading. This one seemed to go off on a few tangents that didn't quite fit into the whole scheme of the novel or the overall arc. I'm still scratching my head about Rose and Yrsa.

Carl continues to be a bit of a mystery as well, especially when it come to what happened in his case with Hardy. I'm waiting for us to finally get the whole picture on this one and perhaps see Carl move past his guilt.

I can't recommend the Department Q novel enough for those of you who love crime and police centered novels.

Final Take:  4.25/5


Thanks to Dutton Books for my ARC of the novel.