Termush by Sven Holm

First published in Denmark in 1967; published in translation by Faber & Faber in the UK in 1969; published by ‎Farar, Straus & Giroux (FSG Originals) on January 9, 2024

Termush was “rediscovered” by Faber editors who dug through the Faber vaults to find forgotten novels that might deserve to be regarded as classics. Faber released it in the UK in 2023 as part of its “Faber editions” series.

Termush is the name of a remote hotel on an unidentified ocean. The narrator paid a substantial sum for a guaranteed spot in the hotel as a shelter from catastrophe. His lodging includes access to underground shelters, stored provisions, uncontaminated water, and security against outsiders. The hotel’s luxury yacht is berthed nearby, providing egress if life in the hotel becomes unsustainable.

We aren’t given the details, but a disaster (presumably a nuclear war) gave the wealthy guests reason to check into the hotel. The guests are finally free to venture outside, subject to radiation warnings that send them scurrying back to the shelters. There is little to see; vegetation has gone up in flames, birds are dying.

The novel is intentionally surreal in its depiction of hotel guests as largely undisturbed by disasters that don’t immediately affect them. Perhaps the world outside their walls has nearly come to an end, but they are still able to order dinner from a full menu. The guests display little curiosity about the world’s fate. Occasionally returning to underground shelters when the wind brings too much radiation to the hotel grounds is inconvenient, but most guests are content to follow the directions of hotel management.

The hotel staff is sending out reconnaissance parties to look for inhabitable areas, but their radioed reports are censored before reaching the guests. The narrator opposes the censorship; he wants to know what is left of the world. Management isn’t sure the guests can handle the truth. Most guests seem to feel the same way. If the news is bleak, they don’t want to know.

The narrator understands when a guest who can no longer tolerate “this closed compartment cut off from the world” flees from “the game of make-believe that nothing had happened.” Eventually, a few more follow the path of freedom, leading hotel management to act more like jailers than servants. Perhaps an insurrection is coming.

When survivors appear in search of food and medical care, the hotel guests consider whether it is appropriate to be charitable. The survivors come bearing news of the outside world, which is a good thing, but the outsiders didn’t pay a fee for the hotel’s protection, as did the guests. The guests quickly vote on rules that allow a few survivors at a time to enter the hotel for food and water, but only for one night. This leads to a discussion about the perils of democratic decision-making.

Nor do some guests want their reconnaissance teams to be helping survivors. That’s not the job they’re paid to do, after all (payment presumably meaning continued access to the hotel and its resources), so most guests feel the team members should set their humanity aside and do what they’re told. Termush illustrates the divide between ruling class and working class with more flair than Marx.

The narrator develops an intimate friendship with a woman named Maria, but she is an enigma. She never seems to speak, communicating by expressions that convey her emotions. “She keeps close to me, follows me almost stride for stride, as if this were an order.” I was left wondering whether Maria actually exists.

Much of the time, the narrator seems to be in the dark about the world he now inhabits. Hotel management attributes a guard’s injured arm to being “careless with a hand grenade.” Why does hotel security have hand grenades and what did the careless guard intend to do with his? They later morph from “security” to “soldiers” in ways and for reasons that the narrator does not explain. Eventually, the hotel seems to be under siege, but by whom? The narrator refers to “the strangers” and “our adversaries,” later designating them as “the enemy,” but seems to have no clue about their identity. Nor does he seem to care. The narrator is so detached, so free from opinions, that the story’s moral questions are left unfiltered. Should the hotel help outsiders? Should hotel “soldiers” kill them? Readers are free to make of these issues what they will.

The story’s surreal atmosphere is illustrated by the final sentence: “Outside the sea is still; there is no darkness and no light.” Without darkness or light, what kind of reality exists? The novel’s ambiguities might explain why the Faber editors regarded Termush as a potential classic. The story could be set in any country, in any time. While the guests are sheltering against drifting clouds of radiation, any other apocalyptic event could as easily be substituted. The story resonates because of its focus on group responses to crisis and how those responses may be a function of social class.

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The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Published in Denmark in 2016; published in translation by Dutton on September 19, 2017

The Scarred Woman is an eventful novel. I would recommend reading others in the series first because, while the main plot stands on its own, a compelling subplot will make more sense to readers who are familiar with the earlier novels.

The main story involves three young women who are receiving public benefits. They aren’t particularly interested in working, and at least one of them is dependent on the kindness of men … any men she can find who will fund her lifestyle. A social worker named Anne-Line is fed up with attractive young women who tell her lies in order to extend their benefits. Anne-Line is dying of cancer and, having little to lose, decides to mete out her own form of harsh justice.

One of the young women, Denise, has a disagreeable grandmother who has been reluctantly funding Denise’s mother and Denise. The grandmother dies, which spins off another murder investigation that involves additional victims. Then the three young women decide to commit their own crime, which leads to even more murders.

The police investigators in Copenhagen have their hands full. None of that should concern Carl Mørk and his Department Q colleagues, since their task is to investigate cold cases. But the spin-off story involving Denise’s grandmother ties into a cold case, and Carl always enjoys stepping on toes by becoming involved in current murder investigations.

The subplot involves Rose from Department Q. Past novels have suggested that Rose’s mental health is precarious. In The Scarred Woman, Rose is having serious psychological problems rooted in her past. Carl, Assad, and Gordon take a break from investigating other crimes to investigate Rose’s past, unearthing still more crimes that need to be solved.

The plot is complex but it never becomes confusing. Rose is the continuing character who gets the most attention in The Scarred Woman, and Jussi Adler-Olsen provides significant new insights into her character. Carl and Assad are always entertaining, and while this novel does nothing to reveal Assad’s mysterious past, it does allow him to assert himself when Carl gets on his nerve by correcting his Danish. In past novels, Assad has almost been used as comic relief, but this novel is darker than the others, and Assad’s reaction fits that tone. At the same time, Adler-Olsen lets the reader see Assad’s tender side in a key scene involving Rose.

I always look forward to reading novels in the Department Q series. The Scarred Woman is one of the best.

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The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen

First published in Denmark in 2014; published in translation by Dutton on September 8, 2015

The Hanging Girl is tied with the first Department Q novel as my favorite entry (so far) in this excellent series. The mystery is complex but credible. The story builds suspense but doesn’t skimp on character development. Humor and drama are carefully balanced. The book is long but it never moves slowly and it ends in a burst of excitement.

A police sergeant on an outlying island finally gives up on a case he could never solve, but not without asking Department Q for help. Carl wants nothing to do with it. As usual, Rose bullies him into investigating the case, an unsolved hit-and-run that left a young girl’s body hanging from the tree branches in which it was entangled.

When Carl, Rose, and Assad look into the old case and a more recent death, Carl sees nothing worth investigating and wants to go home. As is the custom in these books, Carl is outvoted by his subordinates and the subsequent investigation leads to a deepening mystery.

As that investigation progresses, alternating chapters fill us in on a story of several missing women and of rivalries for the attention of Atu, a charismatic fellow who worships the sun. Another woman, not yet missing, is at risk.

An ongoing storyline in these novels concerns an incident in which Carl and his colleague Hardy were shot. Carl blames his cowardice for the fact that Hardy was left paralyzed. That subplot is advanced a bit in The Hanging Girl, more than it has been in recent novels. Jussi Adler-Olsen seems to be setting up a significant development in that subplot in an upcoming novel.

Also advancing is the evolving mystery of Assad’s background. Assad is my favorite character in the series, an outwardly gentle and decent man (most of the time) who clearly has a violent history. Each novel teases the reader with hits of Assad’s past, but it is the Assad of the present who plays a heroic and self-sacrificing role in The Hanging Girl.

I always learn something when I read one of these novels. This one features a good bit of interesting information about the intersection of astrology, astronomy, and theology. More importantly, it features a surprising plot that continues to twist until the truth is finally revealed.

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