The Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The Keeper of Lost Causes
The Absent One 
A Conspiracy of Faith

The Purity of Vengeance is the fourth book in the Department Q series from Jussi Adler Olsen.  There are eight books in the series as of right now and I suspect that I'll read them all. In this series, Carl Morck is our grumpy Danish detective who is in charge of a motley crew of people who investigate cold cases.  In this case, his assistant throws a case on his desk that he was initially uninterested in, but we soon learn that it's linked to several other crimes.  Morck is still guilt-ridden about the case that killed one of friends and paralyzed another while his soon-to-be-ex-wife is attempting to con him out of money. 

Meanwhile, his cheerful assistant who we have suspected has hidden depths for quite some time, shows us a lot about his background in this novel. It turns out he has skills that make him quite suitable for Department Q and I can't wait to see how Morck begins to use these skills now that he knows about them. 

As in The Absent One, we know a lot about who committed the crimes in this novel from the beginning, so this is more of a thriller than a mystery, at least from the perspective of the reader.  Adler-Olsen spends much of the novel taking us through the criminal's justifications and reasons for the crimes. In this way, the novel is asking some deeply troubling questions.  Should you be judged for the worst decisions you've made in your life? What actions can you or should you take in revenge for people who have mistreated you? What do you do when mistreatment was sanctioned by the government?  Should the government make amends? How? And those are all the questions that come up before you start thinking about government corruption. 

So, yeah, I like this series and I like the Scandinavian noir genre.  I'm going to keep reading this series, so don't be surprised if Adler-Olsen comes up some more!