Detective Carl Morck is emotionally scarred after a shooting in which one of his partners died and the other was permanently paralyzed. As a ploy to get him out of the way and procure extra money for the department, his boss names him director of "Department Q" or cold cases. Morck and his curiously-abled "assistant" Assad (supposedly hired for janitorial and clerical duties but possessed of some serious detective skills and a curious Middle Eastern background) decide to look into the five-year-old disappearance of a politician that seems particularly suspicious. Morck and Assad soon realize that the investigation into the disappearance was botched on every level and that importnt clues were overlooked.
At the same time as Morck and Assad investiage her disappearance, Adler-Olsen shows us what the politician, Merete Lynggaad has been subjected to over the past five years. Half-starved, filthy, and subjected to an ever-increasing pressure chamber, it's amazing that she's still alive. Morck certainly doesn't expect her to be, nor does he expect to find her inside a pressure chamber which, if released, will cause her to explode from the inside out, much like a diver coming up too quickly from the ocean floor.
Anyone who likes their mysteries fast-paced and their detectives sarcastic and not quite law-abiding will appreciate this novel and probably want to read the next one in the series, The Absent One, as well.
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