Dept Q is a nine-part Netflix series based on a book by Jussi Adler-Olsen. To be honest, when I realised this was a show in nine hour-long segments, I feared that it would be padded out, as quite a few series on Netflix and other platforms are. Luckily, I was wrong. This is a pacy and fascinating story which gripped me from start to finish.
The setting of the story has been transplanted to Scotland from Scandinavia. I can't judge how faithful the screenplay (by Scott Frank and Chandni Lakhani) is to the original, which I haven't read, but it certainly worked for me. Episode one begins in dramatic fashion, as bantering cop Carl Morck, his partner and pal James Hardy, and a young police officer, are shot while investigating a murder. Morck is wounded, Hardly paralysed, and the young cop killed.
When Morck finally returns to work, he is assigned to a new cold case unit, Department Q, a sort of Department of Dead Ends brought up to date. His new colleagues are a Syrian civilian called Akram and a young woman, Rose. They start to look into the case of a vanished lawyer, Merritt Lingard (a very demanding role, expertly handled by Chloe Pirrie). Morck is played quite superbly by Matthew Goode, while Alexev Manjelov is wonderful as Akram, the perfect foil. A great double act.
The story is complex but skilfully told, and the cast, which includes those consistently good performers Mark Bonnar and Kelly Macdonald, does justice to the script. This is a dark story, with some upsetting scenes and no shortage of bad language, but it works very well. Yes, you do have to suspend your disbelief from start to finish. But it's worth it.
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