Julie's Review: The Purity of Vengeance

Author: Jussi Adler-Olsen
Series: Department Q #4
Publication Date: December 13, 2013
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Pages: 512
Obtained: purchased
Genre:  Crime
Rating: 4/5
Bottom Line: A bit gruesome but another interesting development with the characters
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab!

Summary: In 1987, Nete Hermansen plans revenge on those who abused her in her youth, including Curt Wad, a charismatic surgeon who was part of a movement to sterilize wayward girls in 1950s Denmark. More than twenty years later, Detective Carl Mørck already has plenty on his mind when he is presented with the case of a brothel owner, a woman named Rita, who went missing in the eighties: New evidence has emerged in the case that destroyed the lives of his two partners—the case that sent Carl to Department Q. But when Carl’s assistants, Assad and Rose, learn that numerous other people disappeared around the same weekend as Rita, Carl takes notice. As they sift through the disappearances, they get closer and closer to Curt Wad, who is more determined than ever to see the vision of his youth take hold and whose brutal treatment of Nete and others like her is only one small part of his capacity for evil. ~amazon.com  


Review: If you haven't read any of the Department Q novels, you really do need to start at the beginning to get the full inner workings of Carl, Rose and Assad. The cases are interesting but that's not what keeps me coming back to this series, it's the relationships.

 The Purity of Vengeance focuses on a cold case of 4 missing people and it leads the team down a difficult path. As a reader, your heart breaks over for Nete's path in life. She really has been dealt a crappy hand in life. Just when she thinks things are going to get better and her life has turned out for the better, it all goes down the rabbit hole. So she decides to get her revenge on the people who she feel cause her life to go wrong. As wrong as it is, I have to say that based on the story we are told these people were scum of the earth. I'm not saying that what Nete did was appropriate but part of me felt vindicated for her.

Mr. Adler-Olsen knows how to weave a story and build the character's stories. In each book we learn something more about the key players and this one focuses on Rose. I'm guessing that Mr. Adler-Olsen gets his novel ideas from the news and then fictionizes it.

For fans of Swedish Crime/Noir novels, you really should pick up the Department Q series. It is everything you want: dark, brutal, engaging and well drawn characters. I can't wait to get my hands on the next one in the series.

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