Disgrace

Title: Disgrace

Author: Jussi Adler-Olsen

Number of pages: 544

Started: 22 August 2012

Finished: 29 August 2012

Opening words:

Another shot echoed over the treetops.

The beaters’ calls had grown clearer. A throbbing pulse was thundering against my eardrums, the damp air forcing its way into my lungs so fast and hard that it hurt.

Run, run, don’t fall. I’ll never get up again if I do. Fuck, fuck. Why can’t I get my hands free? Oh, run, run . . . shhh. Can’t let them hear me. Did they hear me? Is this it? Is this really how my life is going to end?

Branches slapped against my face, drawing streaks of blood, the blood mixing with sweat.

Read a longer extract here.

Plot summary:

Kimmie's home is on the streets of Copenhagen. To live she must steal. She has learned to avoid the police and never to stay in one place for long. But now others are trying to find her. And they won't rest until she has stopped moving - for good.
Detective Carl Mørck of Department Q, the cold cases division, has received a file concerning the brutal murder of a brother and sister twenty years earlier. A group of boarding school students were the suspects at the time - until one of their number confessed and was convicted. So why is the file of a closed case on Carl's desk? Who put it there? Who believes the case is not solved?
A police detective wants to talk to Kimmie and someone else is asking questions about her. They know she carries secrets certain powerful people want to stay buried deep. But Kimmie has one of her own. It's the biggest secret of them all.
And she can't wait to share it with them . . .

What I thought:

I really loved Adler-Olsen’s first book, Mercy.  I therefore had high hopes of this book.  It didn’t live up to them.  I found this book really hard work and a somewhat tedious read.  The main detective Cark Morck wasn’t really in the book that much and he and his assistant were part of what made the last book good.  It was also rather more violent than it needed to be, and I didn’t like the plot very much.  All in all a very disappointing read.