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Book Summary and Reviews of The Shadow Murders by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The Shadow Murders by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The Shadow Murders

A Department Q Novel

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  • Published:
  • Sep 2022, 448 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

In the exhilarating penultimate thriller of the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling Department Q series, the team must hunt for a nefarious criminal who has slipped under the radar for decades.

On her sixtieth birthday, a woman takes her own life. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck's desk, he can't imagine what this has to do with Department Q, Copenhagen's cold cases division since the cause of death seems apparent. However, his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this is related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.

At Marcus's behest, Carl and the Department Q gang—Rose, Assad, and Gordon—reluctantly begin to investigate. And they quickly discover that Marcus is onto something: Every two years for the past three decades, there have been unusual, impeccably timed deaths with connections between them that cannot be ignored, including mysterious piles of salt at the scenes. As the investigation goes deeper, it emerges that these "accidents" are in fact part of a sinister murder scheme.

Faced with their toughest case yet, made only more difficult by COVID-19 restrictions and the challenges of their personal lives, the Department Q team must race to find the culprit before the next murder is committed, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the killer is far from finished.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Opening teases don't get much more tantalizing than in bestseller Adler-Olsen's stellar ninth Department Q novel featuring Copenhagen's cold-case division.... The climax lives up to the promise of the brilliant opening, cleverly connecting all the plotlines." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This nail-biter offers the best of everything Department Q thrillers promise: compelling team rapport, boots-on-the-ground detection, masterful story construction, and a cliffhanger ending." —Booklist (starred review)

"Christmas is the holiday fast approaching in Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen's The Shadow Murders, translated by William Frost. But it might as well be Halloween, for all the ghoulish deeds and wicked fiends the book contains." —Wall Street Journal

This information about The Shadow Murders was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Jussi Adler-Olsen

Jussi Adler-Olsen is Denmark's #1 crime writer and a New York Times bestselling author. His books routinely top the bestseller lists in Europe and have sold more than twenty-seven million copies around the world. His many prestigious worldwide crime-writing awards include the Barry Award and the Glass Key Award, also won by Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, and Stieg Larsson.

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