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A review by doreeny
The Marco Effect by Jussi Adler-Olsen
3.0
This fifth Department Q mystery is a tale of thievery, blackmail, enslavement, corruption, extortion, and murder. Marco Jameson is a teenage beggar who decides to flee from his Uncle Zola’s clan when he discovers the extent to which his relative, a modern-day Fagin, will go to increase the amount of money his gang of beggars and pickpockets brings home each day. While escaping, he inadvertently discovers that Zola was involved in a murder. Marco wants to see Zola punished, but he fears the police because he has no legal documentation. In the meantime, Detective Carl Mørck decides to resurrect a missing person case, an investigation that uncovers a complicated banking scam disguised as foreign aid from the government department for which the missing man worked. Obviously, Marco and Carl’s paths eventually cross and interesting connections develop.
The plot is rather convoluted, especially in terms of the banking scam which involves a number of people all of whom try to ensure the cover-up of the crime. The villains are known to the reader throughout so the suspense lies in how Marco will be able to escape Zola’s clutches and how Carl will be able to unravel the intricacies of the missing person/bank scam case which keeps expanding and even ensnares Marco.
Carl remains the same cantankerous guy as shown in the previous books. He cannot refrain from telling others what he really thinks, except when it comes to women. With them he is totally inept at maintaining relationships. His assistants, Assad and Rose, are as quirky as ever and they are joined by a law student assigned to them who may prove to be as interesting.
As expected with this series, there are many touches of humour. Much of the comic relief comes from Assad’s camel-themed axioms: “’You know, when a camel farts there can be two reasons . . . . Either they have eaten too much grass or else it’s just to hear some music beneath the desert sun’” (142) and “’Don’t you know what happens when you give a camel a slap on the backside, Carl? It begins to run and stretch its neck toward where it thinks its goal is. Almost as if having a long neck in itself could make it arrive faster’”’ (246).
There are also observations about Danish society, usually made by Marco, the outsider: “The Dane was at his kindest and most attentive when he was in familiar surroundings with people of the same ilk” (99) and “Danes simply adored spending money, so anything that was more than a few years old quickly became worthless” (195).
There are a couple of problems with the book. One is that Marco succeeds at escaping pursuers too often. He has several groups of people looking for him, yet he manages to evade all of them. It is established early on that he has street smarts, but the number of times he outwits his hunters makes him come across as a superhero. Another weakness is Carl and Marco’s reactions to women. When they see an attractive woman, they seem to fall in love almost immediately. Marco sees a young woman and feels “inexpressible tenderness”: “He wanted to remember [her features] for having just made him feel so warm inside. Even the sound of her voice moved him” (194-195). Carl meets a librarian with “the kind of scent that put every gland in his body on the alert” and “That was when Carl lost all interest in police work” (275 -276).
This book is not great literature, but it is a good police procedural. Its interesting characters who are more developed with each book keep bringing me back to the series.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
The plot is rather convoluted, especially in terms of the banking scam which involves a number of people all of whom try to ensure the cover-up of the crime. The villains are known to the reader throughout so the suspense lies in how Marco will be able to escape Zola’s clutches and how Carl will be able to unravel the intricacies of the missing person/bank scam case which keeps expanding and even ensnares Marco.
Carl remains the same cantankerous guy as shown in the previous books. He cannot refrain from telling others what he really thinks, except when it comes to women. With them he is totally inept at maintaining relationships. His assistants, Assad and Rose, are as quirky as ever and they are joined by a law student assigned to them who may prove to be as interesting.
As expected with this series, there are many touches of humour. Much of the comic relief comes from Assad’s camel-themed axioms: “’You know, when a camel farts there can be two reasons . . . . Either they have eaten too much grass or else it’s just to hear some music beneath the desert sun’” (142) and “’Don’t you know what happens when you give a camel a slap on the backside, Carl? It begins to run and stretch its neck toward where it thinks its goal is. Almost as if having a long neck in itself could make it arrive faster’”’ (246).
There are also observations about Danish society, usually made by Marco, the outsider: “The Dane was at his kindest and most attentive when he was in familiar surroundings with people of the same ilk” (99) and “Danes simply adored spending money, so anything that was more than a few years old quickly became worthless” (195).
There are a couple of problems with the book. One is that Marco succeeds at escaping pursuers too often. He has several groups of people looking for him, yet he manages to evade all of them. It is established early on that he has street smarts, but the number of times he outwits his hunters makes him come across as a superhero. Another weakness is Carl and Marco’s reactions to women. When they see an attractive woman, they seem to fall in love almost immediately. Marco sees a young woman and feels “inexpressible tenderness”: “He wanted to remember [her features] for having just made him feel so warm inside. Even the sound of her voice moved him” (194-195). Carl meets a librarian with “the kind of scent that put every gland in his body on the alert” and “That was when Carl lost all interest in police work” (275 -276).
This book is not great literature, but it is a good police procedural. Its interesting characters who are more developed with each book keep bringing me back to the series.
Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).