Dept. Q: where to start reading

After Season 1, in the books you are

at The Keeper of Lost Causes.

through the end of the first novel, now set in Edinburgh rather than Copenhagen.

Season 1 (2025, 9 episodes) adapts The Keeper of Lost Causes in full. Morck's exile to a basement cold-case unit after an ambush that kills a colleague and paralyses his partner comes from the book, relocated from Copenhagen to Edinburgh with most character names anglicised.

📖 Start reading at The Absent One (the second novel -- also Scott Frank's stated basis for the already-filming, not-yet-aired season 2)

🔒Spoiler-safe, only what the show already showed you.

Get the book

Season 1 leaves off at the end of book one. Start here:

The Absent One

Jussi Adler-Olsen · Book 2 of 2

Bookshop.org →Amazon →

or borrow it: your library

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What the show changed here

• ChangedThe investigation relocates from Copenhagen to Edinburgh, with Police Scotland standing in for the Danish force of the books.
• ChangedThe missing woman at the case's centre is anglicised from the book's Danish politician Merete Lynggaard into Merritt Lingard, a Scottish solicitor.
• ChangedAssad, Morck's assistant in the books, becomes Akram Salim, a Syrian ex-policeman, on the show.
• ChangedHardy Henningsen, Morck's partner in the books, becomes DCI James Hardy on the show; the ambush that leaves him paralysed and opens the season carries over from the novel.
• ChangedCarl's homicide-chief boss in the books, Marcus, is reworked into a woman, Detective Chief Superintendent Moira Jacobson, on the show.

Where this comes from: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · crimefictionlover.com · whats-on-netflix.com · jussiadlerolsen.com · jussiadlerolsen.com · wornoutspines.com · tvmaze.com. Spotted a mistake? The report link at the foot of this page comes straight to us.

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Dept. Q relocates Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q novels from Copenhagen to Edinburgh. Season 1 (2025) adapts the plot of the first novel, The Keeper of Lost Causes (UK: Mercy), in full -- DCI Carl Morck's exile to a cold-case unit after an ambush that opens the season comes straight from the book -- though the setting, most character names, and much of the texture are reworked for Scotland. Reviewers who know the books have called the result faithful to the novel's plot despite that wholesale surface reworking. Showrunner Scott Frank has said the already-filming second season draws on the second novel, The Absent One (UK: Disgrace), though Netflix has not published an official synopsis confirming it. The print series runs to ten novels total (through 2024's Locked In), with an eleventh, No Song for the Dead, due in September 2026.