Tips and Resources From Your Jussi Adler-Olsen Book Club Friends:

Jussi Adler-Olsen is most well known for his Department Q mystery series, which has a strong dose of humour alongside clever psychological thrills. Jussi purposely writes comedy into his novels, saying: “Laughter releases endorphins in your brain. This substance creates positive thoughts and a good mood. You become more receptive to new impressions and thereby better equipped to sense moods and a better and more alert reader. When you laugh while reading my novels, it increases your connection to the characters you read about and makes troublesome scenes easier to cope with.”

The humour often disguises the more serious, dark themes in his novels, which explore how crimes emerge from abuses of power and the trauma that ensues. He says, “I hate power abuse and injustice and in every one of my novels, I tell a version of power abuse and show ways in which you can break it. I am convinced that my readers do not just want to be entertained – of course, they also want that – but they also want to learn something and take something with them, which invites reflection. One reason why I chose to write criminal thrillers is that I thereby can touch upon every subject. Evil is a useful tool and when you describe the contrast between good and evil, you can send a message.”