In Adler-Olsen's eighth "Department Q" story (after The Scarred Woman), the team races against time to thwart two terrorist plots--one domestic, one international. It begins on a beach in Cyprus, where hundreds of Syrian refugees wash ashore from a capsized escape vessel. The death of an unidentified refugee--the titular Victim 2117--sparks an investigation by Department Q, Copenhagen's cold case division. Meanwhile, a reclusive teenager is threatening to murder his parents and anyone else who crosses his path as soon as he hits a milestone death count in his favorite video game, and a terrorist cell of suicide bombers are bent on sowing chaos across Germany and Belgium. Both seemingly unrelated cases are connected to Assad, one of Q's own members, and their investigations force him to reconcile with his secret past. VERDICT There's not a lot in the way of rich descriptions or subtle character development in this plot-driven page-turner, but fans of the series will cheer to once again ride along with this band of Danish police. [See Prepub Alert, 8/19/19.]--Iris S. Rosenberg, New York

In bestseller Adler-Olsen's suspenseful eighth Department Q novel featuring Copenhagen's cold-case division (after 2017's The Scarred Woman), journalist Joan Aiguader hopes to revive his reputation with coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis by focusing on an unidentified woman whose corpse washed up on Cyprus; the victim was the 2,117th person to drown in the Mediterranean that year. Those aspirations are dashed when Joan's editor reveals that the woman was actually fatally stabbed, a missed detail that embarrassed the newspaper that ran his story. Photos of those nearby at the time the body reached land leads Department Q mainstay Assad to believe that family members he thought dead are still alive. Meanwhile, a recluse has fixated on an image of Victim 2117 and begins calling the squad to announce that, once he's killed his 2,117th person in his violent online game, he will murder for real, triggering a desperate race to avoid bloodshed. Series fans will relish Assad's gripping backstory. Adler-Olsen does a masterly job juggling plotlines. (Mar.)

Spanish journalist Joan Aiguadar inadvertently sets off simultaneous mass-murder plots when he reports on the death of Victim 2117, an elderly woman whose body washed onto a Cyprian shore after her refugee raft capsized. In Copenhagen, Department Q's Hafez el-Assad's world tilts when he spots the article: Victim 2117 was a close family friend, Lely Kebabi. Even worse, the accompanying photo shows his long-lost wife and daughter alongside feared Iraqi interrogator Abdul Azim. Sixteen years ago, el-Assad reveals, he was a Danish intelligence officer dispatched to Iraq and was captured by the secret police. El-Assad managed to escape, but not before he made an enemy of his torturer, Azim, by scarring his face with Azim's own acid. Azim kidnapped el-Assad's wife and daughters, dragging them through battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria while he searched for el-Assad. Azim uses Aiguadar to draw el-Assad and Department Q chief Carl Mørck to Germany, where he plans to force el-Assad to watch his family die in a terror attack. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, a disturbed young man warns police that he's planning a killing spree inspired by Victim 2117. In a feat of unparalleled storytelling, this eighth Department Q episode brings the full team back together as Adler-Olsen weaves el-Assad's heart-wrenching story into a pair of relentless manhunts.--Christine Tran Copyright 2020 Booklist

The eighth docket for Department Q, of the Copenhagen Police, links its most mysterious member to two culprits planning multiple murders.When down-at-the-heels freelance reporter Joan Aiguader first gets a look at the 2117th refugee to die at the Barcelona shore while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, he's inspired by the dead woman to put aside thoughts of his own suicide and cover her death. The story turns out to be much bigger than he thinks, for Victim 2117 has been stabbed to death, not drowned, and Joan's laughably incomplete reportage gets him put under strict orders to dig up the rest of the story within two weeks. For Hafez el-Assad, of Department Q, Victim 2117 means much more. He recognizes her from Joan's picture as Lely Kababi, the woman who sheltered his family years ago and became a second mother to them. Deeply shaken by her murder, Assad is finally moved to share with DI Carl Mrck, the head of Department Q, some crucial details about his past, from his links to Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison to his real name, Zaid al-Asadi, so that they can take steps against the plot Assad is certain is unfolding. For Abdul Azim, the terrorist now known as Ghaalib, Victim 2117 marks the first step in an epic plot of revenge against the West in general and Assad in particular. And for Alexander, an obsessive video game player, Victim 2117 is the trigger that informs him that once he's claimed his 2117th victory in "Kill Sublime," it'll be time to murder his parents and then go out into the streets of Copenhagen and continue the carnage. Only a wizard could sustain all these plotlines and manage the shifting connections among them, and Adler-Olsen (The Scarred Woman, 2017, etc.) delivers inconsistently on their extravagant promise. But readers hooked by Assad's fatal tango with Ghaalib or the news that Mrck, now 53, is about to become a father again will keep reading compulsively and do their best to shift gears with the grimly multifoliate story.Adler-Olsen supplies everything you could possibly want from a thriller and much, much more. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.