Jussi Adler-Olsen
Jussi Adler-Olsen (1950) is a Danish crime writer. Olsen has won numerous awards and writes Nordic noir bestsellers, most notably the series launched in 2007 titled Department Q. The series currently has nine parts and three have been translated into Estonian. The cases of Department Q start with the notable detective Carl Mørck, who is emotionally strained after a case that ended in his colleague’s death, receiving an offer of promotion, a department in the basement with a multitude of unsolved murders. Den Grænsløse (The Hanging Girl, 2014) starts with a seventeen-year old case, where the body of a young cheerful woman who studied at the Bornholm Open University is discovered on top of a tree a few kilometres away following a car accident. In Selfies (2017), the violent death of an elderly woman is investigated and it bears a great resemblance to the murder of a young woman several years ago. Offer 2117 (Victim 2117) centres on Mørck colleague, Syrian immigrant Assad. The number of the title signifies a dead refugee washed up on the beach in Cyprus – the young woman’s fate was connected to Assad’s painful past in Syria and Afghanistan. It is not difficult to realise that Adler-Olsen can combine thrilling plots and complicated social problems with skill – in this case, international terrorism, religious fanaticism and the refugee crisis.
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