Department Q Books in Order
Detective Carl Mørck is moved to a basement office at Copenhagen police headquarters to run Department Q, a new cold case unit. With his mysterious assistant Assad, and later the volatile Rose, he reopens cases that everyone else has given up on.
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Series facts
- Books
- 9
- Published
- 2007 to 2021
- First book
- Mercy
- Latest
- The Shadow Murders (2021)
- Setting
- Set in Copenhagen
The reading order
Every Department Q book in publication order. Choose a title for its cast and summary.
- 1Mercy2007With Carl MørckDetective Carl Mørck, back at work after a shooting that killed one colleague and paralysed another, is put in charge of a new cold case department in the basement.Buy on Amazon
- 2Disgrace2008With Carl MørckA note in a file draws Carl Mørck and Assad to a twenty-year-old double murder of a brother and sister.Buy on Amazon
- 3Redemption2009With Carl MørckA message in a bottle, written in blood and found on a Scottish beach years earlier, arrives at Department Q.Buy on Amazon
- 4Guilt2010With Carl MørckA cold case of a missing woman leads Department Q to a notorious island institution where women were once sent against their will, and to a doctor whose past has never caught up with him.Buy on Amazon
- 5The Marco Effect2012With Carl MørckMarco, a fifteen-year-old boy who has escaped from a criminal clan of thieves, stumbles on a body linked to a fraud scheme in Denmark’s aid to Africa.Buy on Amazon
- 6The Hanging Girl2014With Carl MørckA retired policeman on the island of Bornholm calls Carl Mørck about a cold case that has obsessed him: a young woman killed by a hit-and-run driver and found hanging in a tree.Buy on Amazon
- 7The Scarred Woman2016With Carl Mørck and RoseA woman is found murdered in a Copenhagen park, and the case links to an old murder.Buy on Amazon
- 8Victim 21172019With Carl Mørck and AssadThe body of a refugee washes up on a Cyprus beach, and a newspaper prints the number of the dead so far: 2117.Buy on Amazon
- 9The Shadow Murders2021With Carl MørckAn apparent suicide on a significant anniversary leads Department Q to a pattern of deaths stretching back more than thirty years, each with a strange detail in common, while Carl Mørck faces questions about his own past.Buy on Amazon
Do you need to read them in order?
Read the Department Q books in order, starting with Mercy (published as The Keeper of Lost Causes in the United States). Each has its own cold case, but the mysteries of Assad’s past, Carl’s old shooting and Rose’s state of mind build to a conclusion in the final book.
Who appears in which book
The series’ main characters, book by book. Lead means the book is told around them; minor covers cameos.
| Book | Carl Mørck | Assad | Rose | Hardy | Marcus Jacobsen | Gordon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mercy | LLead | MMajor | ·Minor | ·Minor | ||
| 2 Disgrace | LLead | MMajor | MMajor | ·Minor | ·Minor | |
| 3 Redemption | LLead | MMajor | MMajor | ·Minor | ·Minor | |
| 4 Guilt | LLead | MMajor | MMajor | ·Minor | ·Minor | |
| 5 The Marco Effect | LLead | MMajor | MMajor | ·Minor | ·Minor | |
| 6 The Hanging Girl | LLead | MMajor | MMajor | ·Minor | ·Minor | ·Minor |
| 7 The Scarred Woman | LLead | MMajor | LLead | ·Minor | ·Minor | ·Minor |
| 8 Victim 2117 | LLead | LLead | MMajor | ·Minor | ·Minor | ·Minor |
| 9 The Shadow Murders | LLead | MMajor | MMajor | ·Minor | ·Minor | ·Minor |
Characters in the Department Q books
6 characters from Jussi Adler-Olsen’s chart, with the number of Department Q books each appears in.
| Character | Books | First in this series |
|---|---|---|
| Carl MørckDetective heading Department Q | 9 | Mercy 2007 |
| AssadCarl’s assistant with a mysterious past | 9 | Mercy 2007 |
| RoseCarl’s volatile assistant | 8 | Disgrace 2008 |
| HardyCarl’s paralysed former partner | 9 | Mercy 2007 |
| Marcus JacobsenHead of homicide | 9 | Mercy 2007 |
| GordonDepartment Q’s newest assistant | 4 | The Hanging Girl 2014 |