BBC4, the home of subtitled noir

according to Andrew Collins in the Radio Times, has recently shown a trilogy of cold-case thrillers grouped together with the prefix Department Q.

The films are based on the novels by Danish crime writer Jussi Adler-Olsen.

Department Q is the unit worked by Detective Carl Morck and Detective Assad. It’s about as far away from New Tricks as you can get! This week’s instalment, A Conspiracy of Faith, had the discovery of an eight year old message written in blood leading Morck and Assad to a reclusive religious sect, a serial killer and some ominous wind turbines.

Abuse and abduction permeate the films which are nasty and deep and make for compulsive viewing. We’ll definitely be looking out for further titles.

A few weeks ago we also enjoyed Follow the Money

and while watching Department Q recognised some actors who’d made an appearance in both series.

Carl Morck was Sander in Follow the Money Season One.

The abducted woman in The Keeper of Lost Causes (Department Q Film 1) was the sister in FTM Season 2.

The Swede in FTM had a small part in The Keeper of Lost Causes.

The brother in FTM Season Two was in The Absent One (Department Q Film 2).

And there were a couple of other faces we recognised but I can no longer remember the names of their characters.

And the names of the brilliant actors we recognised were completely unknown to us until now.

I’ve been doing my homework and found that:

Carl Morck / Alexander Sodergren (Sander) is the actor NIKOLAJ LIE KAAS who you might know as The Assassin in Angels and Demons.

Merete Lynggaard / Amanda Absalonsen is the actor SONJA RICHTER best known for the film Open Hearts.

Larsson / The Swede is the actor CLAES LJUNGMARK who has a long list of credits going back to the 1980s.

Ulrick Dybbol / Simon Absalonsen is the actor DAVID DENCIK who played Tony Esterhase in the 2011 film version of Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy.

My favourite character in Follow the Money was Bimse played by the actor LUCAS HANSEN  who I hope to see in future scandi noir shows on BBC4.

There’s more info about Department Q

on the BBC website and also Follow the Money.

If you’d like some more Follow the Money

this entertaining blogpost by a devoted fan is well worth a look.

I thought I read somewhere that Follow the Money Season 3 was in development but I can’t find any references. Hope there will be more!

There’s definitely more Department Q. A fourth film is in development and the film rights of another Adler-Olsen novel have recently sold. Adler-Olsen is aiming to write 10 Department Q novels and is currently working on the seventh. More books for the Waiting To Be Read list!

Thanks for visiting my blog today.