The Best One Yet: The Hanging Girl

The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen

In the middle of a hard-won morning nap in the basement of police headquarters, Carl Morck receives a call from a colleague working on the Danish island of Bornholm. Carl is dismissive at first, but then he receives some shocking news. Carl then has no choice but to lead Department Q into the tragic cold case of a vivacious seventeen-year-old girl who vanished from school, only to be found dead hanging high up in a tree. The investigation will take them from the remote island of Bornholm to a hidden cult, where Carl and his assistants must stop a string of new murders by a skilled manipulator who refuses to let anything-or anyone-get in the way.

First Impressions: Hooked from page one. Love the Bornholm setting and local police issues such as excess weight issues on the ferries.

Highlights: I felt this novel seemed a bit more contemporary than the previous five in the series with the brief references to Ipads, as well as all the New Age cults, groups and spiritualities. Fascinating. I liked how three years had passed and Dept Q have been working on all sorts of crimes in the interim. It makes it feel a realistic workplace. The relationships between Carl, Rose and Assad have developed over this time and they may even be sort of close to bordering on being actual friends! There’s a certain tenderness in their ‘duty of care’ for each other. Most importantly, this story has a cracking pace and I couldn’t stop reading it! If only it was a few hundred pages longer…

If I was an editor: Oh no! How long do I have to wait to find out what’s up with Rose?

Overall: The best one in the series yet.

The Hanging Girl: 5 Stars

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