THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Carl Morck is a curmudgeonly Copenhagen police detective mourning the death of one colleague and critical injury of another in an ambush.  Now he has been relegated to the basement to tackle cold cases, along with a new eager assistant, Assad, who also serves as his department’s janitor.  Carl and Assad are the only employees in the newly formed Department Q, and Assad has unexpected skills from an undisclosed prior life.  Carl is obviously suffering from PTSD and drags his feet for a while but eventually begins investigating the disappearance of Merete Lynggaard, a beautiful liberal politician who eschewed social interaction in order to care for her disabled brother.  She has been missing for five years, and her brother has been institutionalized.  Gradually Carl and Assad begin to unravel the mystery of her disappearance, while Merete struggles to maintain her sanity in isolation in an impenetrable room.  We follow her imprisonment in detail and try to solve the puzzle, as she does, of what she has done to deserve such torture, including having to pull her own abscessed tooth.  Her plight motivates us as readers to hope that Carl and Assad will hurry up and rescue her, while they are not even aware that she is alive.  This novel is a treat in every way with twists, suspense, and a smidge of humor to keep you reading and wishing for more at the end.  In fact, for once I succumbed to the temptation to read the sneak peek for the next book in the series.  I have to say that Assad basically steals the show here, and I look forward to learning more about his background in the sequels.