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THE MARCO EFFECT (AUDIO)
by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Graeme Malcolm, narrator
Penguin Audio, September 2014
Unabridged pages
$45.00
ISBN: 1611762642


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Marco Jameson is an unhappy fifteen-year-old, whose only career options are continuing to beg, pick pockets and commit whatever other crimes are ordered by Roma clan leader Zola, presumably for the benefit of the extended family, but primarily to fatten the bank accounts of the greedy and ruthless Zola. Marco would like to lead a moral life, in which he can earn his living in some honest way. But no rebellion is tolerated by dictatorial Zola, a distinctly Fagin-like character, so Marco soon has to flee for his life. As he hides in the woods near their community, he finds himself in the shallow grave of what appears to be a Scandinavian man. He takes the man's necklace but knows that he can never return to his own people.

Zola discovers that Marco has unwittingly stumbled upon the grave of William Stark, who was murdered after a brief trip two years earlier to Cameroon where he was investigating the disappearance of a local agent and of the funds appropriated for a project there. Though Zola can move the body, he cannot allow Marco to thwart his authority and to run off with evidence of this crime. He orders the murder of his own nephew and sends the rest of the clan out looking for him.

During the early days of his new life, Marco works at odd jobs and stays in the home of two older gay men he has become friends with. But Zola's enforcers soon turn everyone against Marco, and a game of cat and mouse ensues, in which Marco narrowly escapes from various members of the clan.

Soon, however, Carl Morck and his trusty team - Assad and Rose - are also looking for Stark. Rose is now more of an assistant investigator than a receptionist and gofer. In this latest installment of Adler-Olsen's series, she has excavated the file of the missing Stark from her large pile of missing persons and unsolved cases. The disappearance of Stark is particularly poignant, because Tilda, the daughter of Stark's partner, has Crohn's disease. Until Stark is located and declared dead, his daughter cannot use the money for expensive home care and good schooling. Though Morck, Assad, and Rose all work in Department Q, which focuses on cold cases, they have decidedly warm hearts.

Soon Rose's kohl-rimmed eyes laser in on Marco. He has been spotted taking a missing person's poster of Stark and has been seen with Stark's necklace. Marco would like to help because he has spied on Tilda and is quite smitten with her. He would like to give the family some closure at the very least. Logically, Marco should trust the police, but he is not a legal resident of Denmark, where the series takes place, and he fears deportation, though he remembers no other place except Copenhagen.

Soon, everyone is chasing Marco, and his increasingly narrow escapes begin to strain credulity. Then there are the bad guys—Roma, Eastern Europeans, and Africans. Danes tend to be the white-collar masterminds of crime. After a while, the stereotypes of Gypsy beggars, Eastern European thugs, and African child soldiers turned professional killer are rather dispiriting. Only Marco counterbalances the band of criminal Roma he has renounced and been rejected by.

Despite its flaws, this procedural is fast-paced, and like its predecessors in the Series Q brand, the recurring characters are well-drawn and continue to develop. The wily Assad, still recovering from injuries inflicted in the previous installment, is a particularly memorable character.

As usual, Graeme Malcolm's narration is consummately skillful. By now, he has the recurring characters, including the members of Carl's overflowing house, down pat. In THE MARCO EFFECT, Malcolm gives Marco's character a great deal of poignancy that might be easier to overlook in the text. He portrays Marco as both a vulnerable youth and a clever survivor. He endows Tilda's voice with heart-warming strength. Malcolm has certainly outdone himself this time around, and the audio may prove to be more engaging than the novel itself.

While THE MARCO EFFECT is not the strongest entry in the Department Q series, it is certainly an action-packed work with engaging characters that will keep most Adler-Olsen fans happy until the next installment.

§ An avid audiophile, Karla Jay is a retired professor of English and Women's & Gender Studies. She is a frequent contributor to this site.

Reviewed by Karla Jay, October 2014

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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