Department Q Trilogy

Columbo meets Cold Case in this trio of Danish feature films based on the first three volumes in a continuing series of police novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Not that Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), the dogged detective at the center of the action, outwardly resembles Peter Falk's rumpled Los Angeles lieutenant. On the contrary, Mørck is as brooding and morose as Columbo was affable and engaging. But as in the classic NBC series, Adler-Olsen's narrative structure reveals the perpetrators to viewers fairly early on, generating suspense by showing how Mørck and his partner Assad (Fares Fares) manage to track them down. Assigned to take over moribund cold case files after a raid goes tragically wrong, Mørck refuses to do a perfunctory job, instead becoming obsessed with actually solving crimes that his colleagues have simply given up on. The Keeper of Lost Causes involves the disappearance of a government official from a ferry; The Absent One centers on the killing of a brother and sister near an elite prep school; and A Conspiracy of Faith features a message in a bottle from a kidnapped child. Although all of the stories fall into a similar pattern toward the close—Mørck is invariably placed in jeopardy, only to be saved at the last moment—and the villains' motivations are always traceable to some childhood trauma, the moody atmosphere and strong ensemble performances make this a fine addition to the burgeoning number of first-class Scandinavian crime dramas. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)