Dept. Q: Premiere Date Set for New Crime Thriller Series Starring Matthew Goode

Netflix has set the global premiere date for Dept. Q (formerly Department Q), a new crime thriller series starring Matthew Goode.

Nordic noir goes British in Dept. Q, the new television series based on the “Department Q” crime novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen. The first six novels have been adapted into Danish films, initially starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Fares Fares (The Keeper of Lost Causes, The Absent One, A Conspiracy of Faith, and Journal 64, aka The Purity of Vengeance), followed by Ulrich Thomsen (The Marco Effect, Boundless). (I’ve seen the first three, which are terrific.)

Dept. Q moves the action from Denmark to Scotland, and features a star-studded lead cast that includes Matthew Goode (The Offer, A Discovery of Witches) as DCI Carl Morck; Chloe Pirrie (Under The Banner of Heaven, The Queen’s Gambit) as prosecutor Merritt Lingard; Alexej Manvelov (Jack Ryan, Top Dog) as Akram Salim, Morck’s partner; Kelly Macdonald (Line of Duty, Operation Mincemeat) as therapist Dr Rachel Irving; and Leah Byrne (Call The Midwife, Nightsleeper) as Rose, a former detective constable.

In the series opener, DCI Carl Morck, a brilliant cop but an awful human being, finds himself exiled to Department Q, the newly-formed cold case unit housed in the basement of the Edinburgh Police, after a shooting incident left a young PC dead and his partner paralyzed. Although its purpose sounds good, the new department is actually a PR ploy to distract the public from focusing on the failures of an under-resourced, failing police force — one that happens to be glad to see the back of Morck, since his razor-sharp sarcasm has made him no friends here.

More by accident than design, Carl starts to build a team for Dept. Q, a gang of waifs and strays who have everything to prove, including Akram Salim and Rose. Akram is a former officer in the Syrian police force, who fled to Europe with his family when civil war broke out. And Rose was a top police cadet, whose mental health-related breakdown during her first year as a detective constable resulted in her demotion to a desk job.

When the stone-cold trail of a prominent civil servant who disappeared several years ago starts to heat up, Carl is back doing what he does best: rattling cages and refusing to take no for an answer.

Dept. Q, a Netflix Series, premieres globally on Thursday, May 29, exclusively on Netflix. (You can set a reminder for it now.)

The cast also includes Mark Bonnar (Guilt, Shetland), Shirley Henderson (“Harry Potter“ and “Bridget Jones” films), Jamie Sives (Annika, Crime), and Kate Dickie (Inside Man, The Witch), amongst others.

A production of Left Bank Pictures (The Crown, Outlander), the series is written by Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit, Godless), Chandni Lakhani (Dublin Murders), Stephen Greenhorn (Doctor Who), and Colette Kane (Broken), and showrun and directed (Episodes 1 and 2) by Scott Frank. It is executive produced by Rob Bullock, Scott Frank, Chandni Lakhani, and Andy Harries.

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“Department Q” book series by Jussi Adler-Olsen