A review by dohec021
The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith

1.0

One of the worst books I’ve ever read - only finished it out of pure spite. Pretty much every single plot point revolves around the selfish, petty and sexual whims of the underdeveloped female characters?? It’s marketed as a Scandi noir but no-one dies? There isn’t any sort of singular thread running through it’s more just like a series of episodes? The writer clearly thought that the protagonist was going to seem infinitely cool and wise purely because he… reads philosophy and interrupts the narrative by asking quite basic existential questions? The only reason it got 1 star is because some of the characters are written with charm and heart, e.g. Varg’s depressed dog Martin and Blomquist.