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    The Keeper of Lost Causes
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    The Keeper of Lost Causes
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    The Keeper of Lost Causes
    Audiobook15 hours

    The Keeper of Lost Causes

    Written by Jussi Adler-Olsen

    Narrated by Erik Davies

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The first book in New York Times bestsellerJussi Adler-Olsen's electrifying Department Q series.

    Carl Mørck used to be one of Copenhagen's best homicide detectives. Then a hail of bullets destroyed the lives of two fellow cops, and Carl-who didn't draw his weapon-blames himself. So a promotion is the last thing he expects. But Department Q is a department of one, and Carl's got only a stack of Copenhagen's coldest cases for company. His colleagues snicker, but Carl may have the last laugh, because one file keeps nagging at him: a liberal politician vanished five years earlier and is presumed dead. But she isn't dead … yet.

    Darkly humorous, propulsive, and atmospheric, The Keeper of Lost Causes introduces American readers to the mega-bestselling series fast becoming an international sensation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 23, 2011
    ISBN9781101523377
    Unavailable
    The Keeper of Lost Causes
    Author

    Jussi Adler-Olsen

    Nacido en 1950, Jussi AdlerOlsen es uno de los autores europeos de novela negra que más éxito ha cosechado.La víctima 2117 es el octavo volumen de su exitosa serie Los casos del Departamento Q, publicada en más de cuarenta y dos países y con más de quince millones de lectores.Ha ganado numerosos premios, entre ellos el Plume d’Or, el Glass Key, el De Gyldne Laurbaer y el Premio Barry.

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    Reviews for The Keeper of Lost Causes

    4/5

    1,259 ratings99 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I read #2 of Department Q first, but I still really enjoyed this book. Sometimes uneven, but I like the main character... and I think I liked this story-line better than #2.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. It had humour and mystery. I will look for more Department Q books. Carl Mork is a detective that is abrasive and not well liked. Returning from a medical leave where one partner is killed and another left paralyzed after an investigation gone bad, his supervisor puts him in charge of the new division called Department Q. Carl and his assistant Assad, solve a cold case. Who is Assad? We might find out more in the next book. Fun to read, definitely peaked my intere
      st.
    • 2/5
      This was a little better than OK. This is the story of a Homicide Detective that survived being shot on the job. Two of his colleagues that were with him did not fare too well and Carl blames himself.

      When Carl comes back to the job he is surprised to learn that he is given a 'promotion'. He is going to head Department Q. Department Q will take cold cases and try to solve them. Department Q is a department of 1.

      It all sounds intriging, right? You would think. Did I mention that the story is based in Denmark? Some of the references to the country and some of the slang/translation was lost on me. What did take away from the story was the uneven pace. The story would move from Carl our Homicide Detective and Merete, a victim of one of the cold cases he is trying to solve. I will confess that I skimmed through a lot of Carl's chapters. He was unlikeable, whiney, rude etc...He was really easy to dislike. I feel that my thoughts about this book are a bit disjointed and scattered, but that is how I felt this story was during the last third or so of the book.

      I thought that the ending was predictable and took way too many pages to get to it.
    • 4/5
      verything changes when Carl demands an assistant. He gets a lot more than he bargained for--a Muslim named Assad who is a jack-of-all trades: Assad dons rubber gloves to clean thoroughly, makes bad coffee, drives like a madman, and acts like a Syrian Sherlock Holmes. Carl is content to put his feet up, smoke cigarettes, and do little or nothing, but Assad digs into the case files. He shows an amazing aptitude for locating valuable nuggets of information, gaining cooperation from secretaries and bureaucrats, and goading Carl into acting like a detective. This unlikely duo soon become obsessed with an extremely challenging cold case--the disappearance five years earlier of Merete Lynggaard, a beautiful, talented, and dedicated up-and-coming politician.
    • 1/5
      I had no idea what this was - I got it at the gift exchange thing. Too graphic, too violent. What was I thinking by even starting it?
    • 4/5
      Chief detective Carl Morck, recovering from what he thought was a career-destroying gunshot wound, is relegated to cold cases and becomes immersed in the five-year disappearance of a politician. (from the publisher)This was a well-written book with mystery, suspense and even a little bit of humor. It takes place in Denmark (the author is from Denmark) which adds interest to the story and to the enjoyment of the book.
    • 5/5
      This book is more of a 4.7, not quite a 5, but still pretty decent. I like feeling brilliant, so figuring out the solution to the case within the first 100 pages is nice in that respect, but waiting for 200 pages while the detective flounders around not asking the right questions gets annoying after a while. Perhaps there was a bit too much foreshadowing, or maybe Morck is just not as great a detective as I want him to be. I already dislike Carl Morck from the other book I've read in this series- Morck seems like a rather sexist jerk to me, not someone I am all that likely to relate to or care about. His sexist streak comes out less in this book than in the other one I read, at least, but I still dislike him. He's a jerk to Assad, too, especially considering how helpful Assad is. I liked the plot though, and I enjoy reading crime/murder mysteries from other countries.
    • 5/5
      DISCOVERING A SERIES THAT'S BEEN AROUND A WHILE....I bought a paperback edition of this book in 2011 and never read it - the book always sunk to the bottom of my pile. When I recently read a very favorable comment about author Adler-Olsen I thought I'd give the series a try and finally read the first, "Keeper of Lost Causes" KLC. (Couldn't find the #$%^@* paperback, bought the Kindle version). It was worth the investment! There are currently seven books in the series. All of them are well rated (for the Analytics amongst you be sure to read my last para.)In one of the early chapters, Danish police detective, irascible Carl Morck, and two fellow officers are shot while investigating a homicide. Carl's recovery is painful; one of his colleagues is dead, the other severely disabled. Upon his return to duty, Carl is promoted - he is named head of the new, one man Dept. Q. His office is in the (unoccupied, unfurnished, uneverything) basement of police headquarters. Carl's been around more than a few years and before too long he has some budget dollars; he's even been assigned support, a walk-in-off-the-street named Assad. Their mission - cold cases. Their orders - prioritize the files and pick one to start with. There first case will be the five year old kidnapping of a young and up and coming attractive political leader; her body has never been found.And the case begins. And here's where I got lost a bit. Do yourself a favor and note the characters' names, especially those that had contact with the victim. The devil is in the details here. KLC is an excellent story, well paced, good tensions, nice turns here and there, and a rather novel imprisonment scheme - you'll learn more about Bernoulli's principle than even Bernoulli wanted to know. But it's always great to learn something new in a crime fiction novel, right? For those of you that don't have a Masters in Physics, no worries, you can skim occasional yawny paragraphs and still not miss a heartbeat (pun). The ending is a tad melodramatic but that's only a minor blip in my book. Perhaps you are thinking "No, not another gloomy, wintry, depressing Scandinavian mystery". No, absolutely not. The entire story has a bit of a light tone, lots of smile moments, and at least one laugh-out-loud. Why? Assad. Yes, Assad, perhaps one of the great sidekicks of all times. As a matter of fact I will read more books in this series because of Assad. He ranks with the greats - Siobhan Clark, Dr. Watson, Sam Ketchum, Nellie Fox, Oreo cream filling. No, I'm not going to give examples. You have to read him in context. You will like Assad very much.I have a lot of confidence that this is a very good series; I expect to read a number of the remaining books, likely all of them, but we'll see. Take a look at Amazon's rankings and the number of reviews for each. KLC has 955 reviews and a 4.4 rating (did you know that if you hold your mouse pointer over Amazon stars it will show you the decimal rating e.g. 4.4 and the distribution of each star category?) The second book (see fantasticfiction.com for a chrono list) is 4.2 and 587 reviews; I believe it is the lowest rated and 4.2 is very good, so the quality of the series is very even.. The third book is 4.5 with 477 reviews; the three remaining books which have been released for at least a year have between 400 and 450 reviews and comparable ratings as above. Conclusion - even though there is the usual dropoff after the very first in the series, the subsequent reviews are high in volume for crime fiction and the ratings are very stable. "If it walks like a winner, and talks like a winner..."
    • 3/5
      This book surprised me. It was fairly strong and intriguing. This Scandinavian Noir genre seems to have no end of contenders looking to topple Stieg Larsson. From a cool GR friend, I have heard Jo Nesbø is the writer to watch out for, so I think I shall find one of his books to read for my next dip into this pool. This story was interesting and the characters quirky and though I had figured out the arc, it didn't bug me the way it has in other instances. I smell a series and would definitely read on.
    • 5/5
      Let me start by saying that this is a book of crime fiction that made me cry. I expect suspense in crime fiction, and Jussie Adler-Olsen delivered (my children looked at me as I was reading the last 100 pages saying over and over, “I can’t stand it! Does she get rescued or not?”). I wouldn’t even be surprised at the kind of tears that come from emotional manipulation. (I cry over telephone commercials.) But it was genuine, tender, true human feeling that had me weeping.Jussi Adler-Olsen, the Danish author of The Keeper Lost Causes, is one of the best loved and best sold Nordic authors of crime fiction. In Denmark last year, one million of his novels were sold. That’s right–last year–in a country with population 5.5 million. He’s also a bestseller in Germany and Austria, rather larger countries.I’m sure he’s going to be here as well. I’m impressed and now also excited that his work is being translated into English, this novel the first of what I’m sure will be many, coming out August, 2011.I’m gratified that I got an advanced reader’s copy so that I can tout his abilities not only in this genre but plainly and simply as a writer. The major characters are brilliantly conceived as an investigating duo. Carl Morck is a grumpy, slovenly detective whose flaws had previously been overlooked if not forgiven by his colleagues because of his effectiveness. However, ever since an investigation gone wrong, where one team member died and another was paralyzed, Morck has been indifferent and depressed and annoying.The deputy chief comes up with a brainstorm: promote Morck up and down simultaneously. He is to be put in charge of a new department, Department Q, which will handle cold cases that, for political reasons, need to be seen to be still active. Nobody expects him to actually do anything in his new office down in the basement. And he is just as happy with that situation.His new assistant, however, is not. The mysterious Assad, a refugee from the Middle-East, brings Morck back to life with his strong coffee, irrepressible spirit, keenness of mind and unusual connections. The pair of them are irresistible as partners.The case they investigate concerns the disappearance of Merete Lynggaard, a rising politician, young, beautiful, intelligent, who has been missing and presumed dead for five years. The novel follows 2 interwoven strands: the present day police investigation, and the sequence of events from Merete’s point of view from prior to her disappearance onward.It’s expertly done. At nearly 500 pages, the book didn’t feel long at all. I read it over a weekend, unwilling to put it down. And as the strands came closer and closer together in time, the suspense was almost unbearable. But more to the point, the novel isn’t just driven forward by a desire to know what happens. The journey is just as gripping. The full cast of characters and their interactions with Morck and Assad are engaging, written with humour and compassion. Here’s a small sample from the beginning of the partnership: " “Do you have a driver’s license?” he asked Assad, hoping that Marcus Jacobsen had forgotten to take that detail into account. If so, the whole question of the man’s employment could be taken up for discussion again. “I have driven a taxi and a car and a truck and a T-55 tank and also a T-62 and armoured cars and motorcycles with and without sidecars.” That was when Carl suggested that for the next couple of hours Assad should sit quietly in his chair and read some of the books on the shelf behind him. He turned around and grabbed the nearest volume, which he handed to his assistant. Handbook for Crime Technicians by Police Detective A. Haslund. Sure, why not? “Pay attention to the sentence structure while you’re reading, Assad. It can teach you a lot. Have your read much in Danish?” “I have read all the newspapers and also the constitution and everything else.” “Everything else?” said Carl. This wasn’t going to be easy. “So do you like solving Sudoku puzzles?” he asked, handing Assad the magazine. "
    • 4/5
      I'm not sure this all hung together quite right--Carl Mørck is a little too boilerplate burned out cop--but the plot is gripping. I'm not easily scared by crime novels, but this one managed the trick. The ending is a little neater than perhaps necessary, although he resists the temptation to make it a perfect ending.

      Ideally, I'd give this 4.5.
    • 4/5
      Usually when a series has a surly and not particularly likeable main character, it's a big turn off for me, especially in mysteries. Fortunately, Mørck is clearly more kind underneath, and his peculiar relationship with his assistant really brightens up the book. Also a fast-paced, intricate mystery, so there's that going for it, too.
    • 3/5
      This was an enjoyable book. It took me a bit to get invested in it, but once the translation style became more familiar, the plot hooked me. Some of the personal relationships Carl had with women seemed off to me and I was not particularly interested in that aspect. I would read another book in this series.
    • 4/5
      Very interesting characters. Bits of plot get gruesome (to me) but I’m trying to forget them. Otherwise interesting.
    • 4/5
      The plot is interesting, until the end. Like most investigation book, the journey is alot more interesting than the ending, that always feels generic and déjà vu.BUT, as I mentioned, before we get to the end, it's a really good and fun book to read. Love the main char, who is smart and grumpy :) I'll keep reading this series as I get time.
    • 1/5
      Did not finish - returned this audiobook. Danish author with English narrator. Very off-putting to listen to accents which make no attempt to be authentic. This was just too sexist and racist for me to persist. The main “roguish cop” was like a parody from a cringey 70s police show.
    • 4/5
      I admit that I have trouble getting into Scandinavian novels —they tend to be intense. Carl Merck was a successful detective until he and his partner were attacked. His partner is crippled and he is promoted out of the way. But he can’t just sit there and a kidnapping cold case catches his attention. He and his new partner keep after the puzzle set by a vindictive man playing a really long game. Intense, twisting, engrossing.
    • 4/5
      Good story overall and some great characters, but there is a major part of the storyline that is utterly horrific involving a woman imprisoned for quite some time. I was reading this during the news about the Cleveland man holding three women hostage for ten years. Ai, yi, yi.
      Update: This series of books has been made in to a Danish series of tv movies and are showing on Netflix streaming. Pretty darn good.
    • 4/5
      Copenhagen's police department created a new department called Q in the basement of their building. It is headed up by Carl Morck, a flawed policeman that nobody wants to work with. He is given an immigrant named Assad who is suppose to do menial work but his intelligence is very helpful to Carl. Department Q is in charge of cold cases and one case catches the eye of Carl. It is a liberal woman politician who has been missing for 5 years. Some surmise suicide or murder but she may still be alive. Carl and Assad are bound and determined to find out.This book has a very interesting plot but the story moved very slow for me. I don't know if it was the translation but the book was very wordy and could have used better dialogue. Carl and Assad were unique but the other characters seemed very stilted to me. I switched to the audio version and that worked better for me. I will continue with the series and I would recommend to those who like mystery noir from Denmark.
    • 4/5
      Department Q has been artificially created for Carl Morck, a curmudgeonly detective whom no one wants to work with. Relegated to a basement office with one quirky assistant, Carl takes on his first case in spite of his ennui and guilt over his earlier failure to protect his two partners. The action takes place in 2002, when a successful member of Parliament disappeared, and 2007 when Carl and Assad try to get to the bottom of what happened. The suspense is heightened because the reader is following the progress of the victim from year to endless year, while it seems to take the police forever to figure out the situation. Very satisfying character development of Carl and Assad, with hints of their further back story to be revealed as the series continues.
    • 3/5
      unusal story, didn't like the narrator's fake Danish accent
    • 3/5
      I had high hopes for yet another Scandinavian mystery author, and Jussi mostly delivered. The plot was well constructed and the characters were, for the most part, properly developed. My only quibble with the story is the fact that the first half moves at a glacial pace, although the dual time-line for the victim and police characters was an interesting technique. I look forward to exploring the rest of this series- I like both of the significant police characters, Carl the inspector and his side-kick Assad, and I especially want to see how Assad's character develops in subsequent stories.
    • 4/5
      Are Scandinavians just naturally better at writing suspenseful mysteries or is it something about the climate that engenders thoughts of horrific crimes? I was a big fan of the Stieg Larsson Millennium series and Henning Mankell's books (and the Wallander TV series) suck me in every time. Now add to the list Jussi Adler-Olsen with his Department Q novels.Carl Morck has just come back to work after a shooting that left his one partner dead and his other partner completely paralyzed. Morck has always been abrasive but he and his two partners worked well together. Now he is on his own and he has been shuffled off to the basement to head up Department Q, a new division that is supposed to take another look at past crimes that have not been solved. He demands and receives one assistant. Assad is a Syrian refugee and, in addition to cleaning, making coffee and driving, he charms the secretaries and makes cogent comments about the cases. In fact it is Assad who talks Carl into chosing the first case. Merete Lynggard had been an up and coming politician when she disappeared from a ferry five years ago. Although her life had been marked by tragedy (her parents died in a car accident and her younger brother was permanently brain damaged) she did not seem to be suicidal. Her brother who was on the ferry as well can not speak. No body has ever appeared. As Carl and Assad dig into the case they find numerous incidents that were never fully investigated. Suspicion centres on a man that Merete had gone to dinner with once shortly before her disappearance but he was killed in a car crash shortly after she disappeared. Or was he?The reader actually knows that Merete was kidnapped as is being held somewhere. So the tension builds as Carl and Assad seem to get closer to solving the crime. Will they be in time?Highly recommended for fans of the Scandinavian noir genre.
    • 5/5
      A problematic detective, appointed to lead a new, good-for-nothing department, and his Syrian refugee aid successfully solve the case of an MP disappeared five years ago. Great characters, good story, looking forward to the next book.
    • 4/5
      I am giving this one 4 stars based on the fact that I could not put it down. It is fast paced and the characters are intriguing. I had a little trouble with Carl's overactive, if unrequited, libido, but that was minor.

      In comparing this to Stieg Larsson's "Dragon Tattoo" trilogy, I appreciated that there was just as much drama, mystery, and reader-stress without the violent and sadistic sexual component that Larsson's books contained.

      The characters were excellent. Carl is intriguing as a seasoned cop with plenty of baggage. I can't wait to find out more about Assad, Carl's assistant, and his dark Syrian past. Will Hardy be present in subsequent books? Will he ever walk again? Did Jepson pass his math finals?

      I will definitely read more in this series, and highly recommend it.
    • 5/5
      A gripping Danish police cold-case procedural. An excellent debut; I'm looking forward to reading more of Department Q!
    • 4/5
      It should be enough to say that I read it in one day. That I liked it as much as a Stieg Larsson book. That the lead character was a detective so loveable he reminded me of John Rebus in Ian Rankin's novels. That the last hundred or so pages could not go fast enough, just to see what was going to happen. And the sidekick should have his own TV series. Is that enough ?
    • 5/5
      I spent a rainy day reading this first of the Department Q novels and thoroughly enjoyed it! I will certainly follow up and read the others in the series. While there are some similarities to Stieg Larsson, I found this book less ambitious, no no less interesting. It will be interesting to see how many of the characters carry through into future works. I would definitely recommend this author to others.
    • 3/5
      A few weeks ago I read and didn't much enjoy Adler-Olsen's third book in the Department Q series: it seemed to fall into two halves, one of which annoyed me and the other of which I liked much better. Noting that it had an average GoodReads rating above four stars, I browsed around to see if it was Just Me. In fact, there are a few others who were likewise a bit iffy about the novel, one of whom (I forget who) said quite forcefully that #1 in the series was pretty damn' fine. So I decided to give it a try . . .

      I enjoyed the whole of this book as much as I did the better half of A Conspiracy of Faith. It didn't bowl me over, but it was a better than average thriller. Five years ago, rising national politician Merete Lynggaard disappeared on a ferry to Germany, perhaps lost overboard, the only witness being her brother Uffe; unfortunately, ever since the car crash in their childhood that killed their parents, Uffe has been mentally retarded, so he could tell the investigating cops nothing.

      Now, an opportunist politician has demanded the Copenhagen cops set up a Cold Case Department, and parliament has allocated money for it. The Homicide Dept. is happy to accept the funding, less so to set up the section . . . until inspiration strikes. Carl Morck, the dept.'s prime PITA cop, has just returned to duty after a tragic incident saw the death of one of his sidekicks and the permanent hospitalization of the other. What better than to promote Carl sideways into the job of running Department Q singledhandedly, thereby getting him out of everyone's hair while being able to divert the bulk of the allocated funds to other purposes? Soon Carl wangles himself an assistant, the enigmatic Syrian emigre Assad, who's supposedly just for menial duties but proves far better than he should be at this detectiving business. And the first case the pair take up is that of the long-missing Merete Lynggaard . . .

      As in Conspiracy, there are secondary cases. One concerns the incident that lost Carl his two sidekicks; that still hasn't been solved by book's end. The other is a savage murder in a local park; even though Carl's not supposed to be meddling in active cases, he gives the investigating team (with more help from Assad than he initially realizes) some pointers that lead to the case's early solution. I had a sort of "So what?" response to this strand of the book, and wished the tale had stuck to the main plot.

      We're given enough information that the solution to that mystery isn't especially hard to work out; the pleasure comes from watching Carl and Assad, who of course for a long time have far less to work with than we do, eventually getting there; from our sympathies with the plucky Merete; and from the genuinely exciting buildup of tension as the two cops race to reach Merete in time.

      Really this deserves ~3.5 stars: it's better than the average blockbuster US thriller you'll come across, but it's not exceptional. If I see another Adler-Olsen book, in the series or out of it, I might pick it up, but I doubt I'd go out of my way.

      Hum. Haw. Swither.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book! The characters were very believable. I loved that Carl wanted so much to not care about anything, but his cop instincts (and a little good luck) wouldn't let him ignore the evidence. Myrete was certainly lucky that Carl irritated enough people to make him head of department Q. I wish the rest of the books were translated to english so that I could love them all!