The Boy in the Suitcase

Nina Borg #1

by Lene Kaaberbøl, Agnete Friis

Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can't say no when someone asks for help—even when she knows better. When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous project yet. Inside the locker is a suitcase, and inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive.
 
Is the boy a victim of child trafficking? Can he be turned over to authorities, or will they only return him to whoever sold him? When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy's are in jeopardy, too. In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is trying to hunt him down.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Book Club, Denmark

338 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Jeg kom til verden på Rigshospitalet i København d. 24.3.1960. Overlægen var i kjole og hvidt - han var blevet afbrudt midt i en gallamiddag - men min søster siger, at det er da ikke noget, hendes fødselslæge var i islandsk nationaldragt. Nogen vil mene at det således allerede fra starten var klart at jeg var et ganske særligt barn. Andre vil sikkert påstå at min mor bare var god til at skabe pludselige gynækologiske kriser.

Jeg blev altså født i København, men det må nok betragtes som en fejl, for min forældre er jyske, min opvækst foregik i Jylland (mestendels i Malling ved Århus), og jeg betragter mig i dag som eksil-jyde på Frederiksberg, på det mine jyske venner omtaler som Djævleøen (Sjælland).

Jeg har skrevet altid, eller i hvert fald lige siden jeg nåede ud over »Ole så en so«-stadiet. Som hestetosset teenager skrev jeg bøgerne om Tina og hestene (de to første udkom da jeg var femten, den fjerde og sidste da jeg var sytten). Som 18-årig opdagede jeg Tolkien og Ringenes herre, og derefter Ursula K. LeGuins trilogi om Jordhavet, og lige siden har mit bog-hjerte banket for eventyr og drageblod og verdener, der ligger mindst tre skridt til højre for regnbuen eller Mælkevejen, og under alle omstændigheder et pænt stykke fra den asfalterede danske virkelighed.

I dag, cirka 30 bøger senere, er jeg stadig lige så håbløst vild med at skrive som jeg altid har været. Og selv om jeg har været en lille smuttur i krimi-land og skrevet en kriminalroman for voksne - læs mere på ninaborg.dk hvis du har lyst - så er jeg bestemt stadig børnebogsforfatter og har stadig hang til magiske momenter!

Personal
Name Lene Kaaberbøl
Born 1960, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Education: Århus University, degree (English, drama). Hobbies and other interests: Playing pentanque.

Addresses
Office—Phabel & Plott ApS, Laksegade 12, St.th, DK-1063 Copenhagen K, Denmark.

Career
Novelist. Formerly worked as a high school teacher, copy writer, publishing company editor, cleaning assistant, and riding teacher. Phabel & Plott ApS, Copenhagen, Denmark, owner and writer.

Honors Awards
Best Disney Novel Writer of the Year award, Disney Worldwide Artist Convention, 2001, for five "W.I.T.C.H." series novels.

Associated Names:
* Lene Kaaberbol (English)

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scandinavian noir, this time from Denmark. This was the first of four novels in the Nina Borg series.

A super-wealthy Danish man sends his assistant to the train station lockers to pick up a package. It’s a suitcase with a three-year old boy inside, asleep and drugged. His assistant, paralyzed about what to do, calls Nina, the heroine of the series. The assistant ends up brutally murdered and Nina becomes responsible for the boy. Nina, like the reader, has no idea at this point what is going on.



Nina is a Red Cross nurse, a wife and mother of two, a “compulsive do-gooder” who can’t say no when someone asks for help. While she works for immigration and she knows she should turn the boy over to the authorities, she worries about the faceless bureaucracy she works with and thinks she can more quickly find the where the boy belongs. Not a good move because meanwhile the killer is after her.

We also follow the story from a distraught mother whose child is missing back in Lithuania. Of course she is fully cooperating with her local police. Or is she? Why is she not telling them about a child she was forced to give up for adoption a few years ago? And why is the mother secretly meeting with the nurse who helped deliver that baby and whose own child was once kidnapped and returned?

We also follow the story from the point of view of the killer as he stalks Nina and the story moves toward its violent ending.



A decent story; it drags a little in places and it took me a while to get into it. I found the first few chapters confusing because each was focused on a different person and it took a while to figure out who all these people were and how they were connected. Still a good read for the Scandinavian noir lover, although it didn’t inspire me to read more in the series.

[Aubrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

First I have to say---what a tremendous book! I don't usually read thrillers---I usually find them too stressful to read on top of everything else I have to deal with in life---and also the title threw me off initially because reading about atrocities done to children is not something I want to read about (if the last bit throws you off too, take it from me as someone who can't read that sort of stuff, you will be surprised when you open this book what it actually turns out to be---I can't say more than that without giving anything away) but this book had gotten a lot of buzz (the NYTimes wrote a very positive review but be warned it also includes lots of spoilers: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/boo... ) and my friend Juliet Grames HIGHLY recommended it to me. All that being said it has been a long time since a book has kept me up several hours after I should have been asleep on a work night and this one certainly did that! I roared through this book!

So, what I liked about it:
-The main characters/mystery solvers are women. They are not stupid or vapid---they are strong and intelligent---of course they have flaws but their flaws make them supremely interesting and truly make you care about them. They also compel the reader to keep reading to see what decisions these women will make next----they are unpredictable while at the same time they feel like women you might know or might have met at one time or another.

-This story was believable and all the characters' actions rang with truth---every character had very specific motivations---they were all very fleshed out.

-I felt the pain of the characters---and everything was very visceral.

-Short chapters and great pacing made this book a breeze to go through.

-I felt like I was right in the story and could visualize everything going on.

I would recommend this to people looking for a great thriller---I would also recommend this to anyone who likes to read books involving strong female characters. This recommendation would be made to 2 separate groups.

I could definitely see this book being made into an incredible film.

I will buy a copy for my boyfriend's Mom who likes thrillers---I think she will love this one.

[Doreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A three-year old Lithuanian boy is kidnapped;his single mother tries desperately to find him. Meanwhile, in Denmark, a nurse named Nina Borg finds him in a suitcase and sets out to find his family. Will mother and child be reunited?

The point of view skips between various characters and countries. The effect is to create suspense: how will all these characters be brought together? The multiple perspectives also humanize the characters, even the villains.

My problem with the book is the character Nina Borg. She is a nurse who works helping refugees and immigrants; in fact, she is totally obsessed with helping people, to the point that her own family is neglected. Towards the end of the book there is a reference to a childhood trauma which is supposed to explain her compulsion to help people. Withholding this information until the end is manipulative and the event described provides insufficient motivation, especially for Nina's indifference to her husband and children.

Furthermore, some of Nina's behaviour is unrealistic. She has a great reluctance to contact the police, a reluctance that is not understandable since she would have a great deal of credibility with authorities. Having a major character make illogical decisions so that she endangers herself and others is manipulative plotting.

Apparently this is the first in a series featuring Nina Borg, but she is not a strong enough character to entice me to read future books.

Please check out my blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).

[Britany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could you imagine opening a suitcase and finding a tiny little boy inside? What would you do?

I really enjoyed this one. It's been at the top of my tbr for what feels like forever, and I can finally replace it with another older book that I haven't gotten to yet. Nina Borg- a red cross nurse in Denmark gets sucked into an ill advised plan when she opens the locker containing the aforementioned suitcase. This one moved at a pretty fast pace, and rotated between the cast of characters narrating the different chapters. At times, it was hard to follow and figure out who was speaking and who was who. I got into a great rhythm and towards the end couldn't stop listening to see how it would all enfold. It came together and for me, wasn't too far fetched of a storyline for me to believe.

Looking forward to the next one in the series.

[Mathura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the story line but that's about it. I don't think it was executed well enough for my tastes or maybe I am judging this book rather harshly after just reading two great books. This is a list of problems I had with this book:
1)I did not like the way the characters were introduced in the book.
2)I do not like keeping track off too many characters that just kept cropping out at the beginning of the book without any idea of how they related to one other.
3)Every chapter was a new character with their story and no corralation to the previous chapter.
4)I wouldn't have minded the chapter jumping so much if at least held my interest long enough to read on which it didn't.
Other than the title and the first page of the book everything else was a bore.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is just what I needed right now. I've been in such a reading slump that I feel like everything that I've tried to read has just dragged on forever. I don't know if it's the new job or what, but it's been making me crazy to feel like I've been going through the motions of reading without actually feeling or caring about most of what I've read. There've been exceptions, but it's mostly just been a slog of book after book that I just want to be done with so I can try something else.

So this was a welcome change. Almost from the very beginning of this book, I was hooked and definitely invested. I've come to realize that I really like crime thrillers from this region of Northern Europe. It's gritty in a way that I love, and dark in a way that I dread (but secretly love).

But... the dread (that I love) was mitigated in this case because of the fact that this is a series centered around Nina Borg. This is Nina Borg's series, so Nina Borg will be in it, and therefore she can't die in the first book, and therefore I wasn't as concerned for her well-being as I would have liked to have been. Contrast that to Steig Larsson's Millennium series. Or George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. (Yeah, I know it's not crime - I'm making a point here.) Because these series titles didn't hint that any particular character(s) were central to the overall story arc, I was on the edge of my fucking seat when the characters were in danger, because I couldn't rely on them being the center of the story's universe and thus have to make it into subsequent books. GRRM kills off people when he gets tired of typing their names in his manuscripts, so nobody is safe... and I fucking LOVE that quality. I want to have my heart in my throat when I read because I want to care about what happens to the characters and I want to feel that it's real. And I got that here... just to a lesser degree.

But there were a lot of things that I loved about this book, so don't let that mini-bitchfit turn you away. This book has great characters, and one of most believably flawed main characters I've read in a long time. I was going to devote a good chunk of this paragraph to talking about Nina, but then I decided against it. Because me talking about her flaws seems to be simplifying them, and it's not really doing justice to the character that has been created here. She is nuanced and... human. And the way that her character is revealed to us is fantastic as well, because it's not just infodumped onto our heads in the beginning. What we learn about Nina comes from the whole of the book, in tiny little smidges of hints that must be tacked on to the small pile that we've picked up already, until gradually a shape starts to take place.

I say this because my perspective on Nina's family changed about a dozen times during the reading of this book. In the beginning, we see Nina trying to help a co-worker avoid her sexually abusive fiance (unsuccessfully), and then right away we're treated to our first impression of Nina's husband, Morton. (Not sure on the spelling - audio.) Nina's husband is painted in rough strokes as an overbearing control freak who has to speak slowly and condescendingly to make sure that Nina can comprehend. Lunch for their son is to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, no crusts, Superman lunchbox. Do you think you got that, or should I write it down? Stuff like that. I was immediately turned off and immediately disliked him. Especially in light of what I could tell of Nina at that point, a strong, independent woman who isn't afraid of standing up to a man who is hurting her friend. But... the more I got to know Nina, the more I got to know Morton, and the more I got to know their whole family dynamic, and the more it all came together into a coherent picture that really changed how I felt about them. And in the end, I came to really respect Morton for his patience and understanding and almost saint-like forgiveness.

And that's just the background. The main plot of the story was great as well, and kept me on my toes to know what would happen. The main antagonist, Yuchas (spelling?), was frightening. Not because he was an intensely violent and unscrupulous man, but because he chose to be that way as a means to an end for his dream of being a normal family man. I could see the desire to be good and normal and happy, but the way that he decided to bring that about was to be completely the opposite. I think that he disturbed me so much more because I have a soft spot for big bearlike thugs who, underneath, are really gentle and kind. And I could see that in him, or the potential to be that, and he decided to reject any kindness and just rage and not think or take control of oneself or responsibility.

The main story revolves around a little boy who was kidnapped, and man, this storyline was heartbreaking - especially from his mother's perspective. I felt for her so much. Her fear and dread and helplessness and anger were all crystal clear and expertly shown. The reader gets to see both what's really happening to her little boy and her fears of what's happening to him, and I couldn't help trying to mentally send her status updates on him because her emotional distress was real to me. I'm not sure if that's completely due to how she was written, or because I have a superactive empathy gland... but whatever it was, it worked for me.

I would have liked a little more closure with Sigita at the end, and maybe a little more about her life and employer. Her job seems to almost parallel that of Karin's... and that's a little concerning. Maybe there will be more about her in subsequent books.

Ok, so all that's about the story itself, which I really enjoyed, but I need to talk about the audio now. I have very mixed feelings about the reader of this book. One the one hand, I really appreciate being able to hear the Danish names pronounced and hear the accents... but the regular narration was quite distracting. The reader has a tendency to get extremely animated and loud and excitable during action scenes, and the end result is that, rather than letting the story speak for itself, it feels like she's forcing a reaction down my throat. "BE ANXIOUS HERE! THIS IS SCARY STUFF!" I think I can decide that on my own, thanks. I can almost picture her leaning forward, eyes wide, hands clutched, heart racing as she reads... and that's how I want to feel at those times, but when I am picturing the reader and NOT the events she's reading, that's a problem.

So.. In conclusion. Story = Awesome. Reader = Not so much. I probably will continue the series at some point, but I likely won't go for the audio again.

[Helen Power · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initial thoughts: What an intriguing read! While I predicted the twist from approximately halfway through, I still greatly enjoyed the journey. This book is very fast paced and much easier to read than other Nordic Noir fiction I've read.
---
Synopsis
Nina Borg's old friend Karin gives her a key and tells her to follow her vague instructions, to go to the train station to pick up what's in a locker, no questions asked. When Nina does this, she finds a suitcase with a tiny three-year-old boy inside. He's still alive.  Nina hurries back to Karin to demand answers, but she discovers that her friend has been brutally murdered. Nina knows that her life--and the little boy's--are also in danger.

Plot
The book begins by providing the points of view of several seemingly unconnected characters in quick succession. It was confusing, and not at all representative of the rest of the book, which was much easier to follow.  One of the characters that we follow from the beginning is Sigita, the mother of the little boy who was abducted.

The book is very fast-paced, but there are quite a few (quick) flashbacks that bog down the storytelling. The story probably could have been told in a hundred fewer pages.  There is one twist in the novel, which is revealed towards the end; however, it's quite predictable, with the clues clearly laid out so that I saw it coming less than halfway through the book.  That said, the storytelling is intriguing and it's a very quick read.

Characters
I did find that the characters were hard to relate to.  Told in third-person perspective, we never truly get into the heads of the characters--not even Nina, the main character.  I didn't quite find that the emotions that different characters were feeling were carrying through in the writing.  For example, Sigita wasn't panicking enough for my liking. If my child was kidnapped I'd probably spend about twenty minutes rolling on the floor in pure terror. Especially considering the circumstances surrounding her child's abduction. She didn't really think her husband had taken him. She knew from the start that he was taken by strangers.



I recommend this book to anyone who wants to dip their toes into a Nordic Noir mystery, but doesn't know where to start. It isn't as dark as others I've read, and it's much easier to follow--both because of the writing style and because there aren't quite as many different characters to keep track of.



This review appeared first on https://powerlibrarian.wordpress.com/

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[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Nordic thriller with an interesting cast of characters. I enjoyed reading it in the late evening. The mystery element is revealed slowly, drawing the reader in and keeping you guessing.

[Kellyreads04 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remember "it was a dark and stormy night ..." the headline that grabs your attention and leaves you a little jumpy, wondering what's around the next corner? That's THIS book! I loved this book literally AT THE TITLE.

I wanted to know - what boy? Why was he in a suitcase? Alive? Or Not?

This book is John Hart meets Stieg Larsson! Even though this book started out a bit confusing - the characters are jumbled together and introduced a little haphazardly, I found that part of the intrique! It does start to flow once it gets going and the characters all mesh together in the way the author, I think, intended.

I LOVED the fact that it's an international book - based in a Danish setting with the richness of the area and people so descriptive in this tale.

When Nina, a nurse and working at a Copenhagen center for social services, agrees to do a favor for a friends, she is shocked to see the suitcase she is sent to get has a small 3 year old Lithuianian child inside, stolen from his mother. They can't speak to each other, adding to the mystery.

Some of the characters made my skin crawl ... others left me saying 'YES! You GO!'

Enriching, engaging, great book and awesome teamwork by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis. I heard this is a new series 'to-be' - I sure hope so! I'm sold!!

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Danish writer Lene Kaaberbol’s 2008 novel The Boy in the Suitcase, originally published as Drengen i kufferten, introduces us to the very original mystery heroine Nina Borg.

Neither a police detective nor a prosecutor, Nina is a Red Cross nurse working in a welfare clinic, down in the trenches dealing with domestic violence and substance abuse. I liked her and I was digging how Kaaberbol put this unique but contextually understandable protagonist and crime situation together.

A little three-year-old boy is found in a bag in a train station locker and Nina is given the responsibility for helping to keep him alive and safe from the serious mess he’s in. Kaaberbol uses a shifting perspective narrative to also describe the child’s Lithuanian mother and the underworld human trafficking network at the heart of these nail biting events.

Fast moving and empathetic, Kaaberbol has created in this book a likeable hero we can get behind and a realistic crime fiction that grabs the reader from the first few pages. I very much enjoyed this but can see where someone would LOVE this writing. I’ll likely read more form her.

[Lance Charnes · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Boy in the Suitcase is yet another entry in the growing catalog of Scandinoir coming to these shores, and in many ways fits the general pattern: a socially maladapted protagonist, evil doings involving underage victims, societal rot, Eastern European villains, heat waves. That its central figure isn’t a police detective doesn’t move it very far out of the middle of this particular stream.

Nina Borg (that protagonist) is a Danish Red Cross nurse who allows herself to be badgered by her slightly-less-dysfunctional friend into retrieving the titular suitcase and discovering the titular boy. The narrative switches between Nina’s efforts to figure out who the boy is and why he’s in Denmark, the Lithuanian mother’s attempts to find out what happened to her son, the Polish and Lithuanian kidnappers’ attempts to get paid, and the ultimate culprit’s maneuverings to make everything turn out right.

This multi-viewpoint approach works pretty well and ensures the reader doesn’t spend prolonged periods with any character who bugs him/her. It also helps illuminate the various motives at work and the stakes involved using each character’s take on the problem at hand. The prose is clean for the most part, the dialog convincing, and the short chapters keep a loping pace through the shortish (just over 300 hardcover pages) plot.

This should’ve worked better for me than it did. What happened? Three big things:

-- The central crime – the kidnapping of a Lithuanian toddler for delivery to a wealthy Danish family – ought to resonate strongly, since it’s the pivot on which the entire plot turns. It didn’t for me. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is the victim himself. At three years old, Mikas is little more than an object on which forces act, and as such it’s hard to invest in him as anything other than (at best) a generic little boy, or (at worst) an animated Maltese Falcon. We hardly even hear direct quotes coming out of his mouth, since he’s speaking Lithuanian and Our Heroine doesn’t understand him. If you find it hard to care much about the crime, you’ll find it harder to care about the events that go on around it.

-- While the interior settings are generally well-limned, the exteriors are mostly blank canvases. I know little more about what the featured parts of Copenhagen and Vilnius look or feel like now than I did going into this. I sensed little specific Danishness in the Danish scenes and only somewhat more Lithuanianness in the Vilnius scenes. This leaves the story strangely unstuck in place; it could with very little effort be relocated to Veracruz and St. Louis, or Bangkok and Sydney.

-- Nina is clearly supposed to be the lead protagonist. She follows in the footsteps of Kurt Wallander and Harry Hole: a savant (she’s said to be a crisis-nursing ninja, though there’s little evidence of that capability here) who is barely able to keep herself fed and clothed and mostly unable to function in adult relationships. She often doesn’t know what to do with Mikas, but is unwilling to turn him over to people who would know (the police or social services agencies); she’s aware a killer is on her trail, but does little to protect herself or the boy. Her lack of a badge doesn’t keep her from plunging heedlessly into this case, shredding what few societal attachments she’s somehow managed to form, spending all her money and lurching from one half-thought-out plan to the next. I found Nina as difficult to engage with as I do Wallander and Hole…bad news when she’s the star.

Unfortunately, nearly all the other characters are as damaged and traumatized as Nina. The boy’s mother is perhaps the most proactive protagonist, yet she spends much of her page time in a slough of despond (perhaps appropriate for a mother whose child has been stolen, but still, there’s a limit). There’s not a single intact marriage, normal childhood or non-derailed life to be found here. Nobody does anything that gives them pleasure. While we expect a certain level of sturm und drang in the new Baltic republics, it’s difficult to credit that the residents of the cleanest, safest, most prosperous societies on the planet are all such miserable wretches.

The Boy in the Suitcase isn’t a bad book, just another entry in a genre I’m increasingly finding off-putting. There's plenty here to like if you’re a fan of Scandinoir. That the plot isn’t police-centric (indeed, the police are largely beside the point) may be a nice change of pace for you. There’s even a sequel. Just don’t read this book if you’re already depressed, because there’s nothing in it that will make you feel any better about yourself or the world.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book! What is about the Scandinavian/Northern European mystery/thriller writers?

This book is set in Denmark and the main character is an aid nurse dealing with immigrants. Immigrants in Europe are a touchy subject, a bit like the Hispanic/Mexican illegal immigrants to this country.

The story deals with dark topics and is very gritty. Much grittier, I have to admit, than my view of what Denmark is really like.

A boy is found in a suitcase. What was he doing there? Who put him there? Where is his family? Do you want to know? Read this book! It's a nice trip!

[LA · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an outstanding psychological thriller set in Denmark with a main character you could not help but care about and yet be frustrated by at the same time. Nina, a nurse at the local camp for foreign refugees, also secretly helps out illegal immigrants with medical emergencies.

These people, ill or injured, cannot visit the hospital or regular doctors no matter how badly off they are health-wise. Should they do so, they would be reported to the authorities and then shipped back to the horrific circumstances from which they have fled. Nina is a nurse who has traveled the world helping the downtrodden. A woman intent on saving others, she is unafraid to break rules and can obviously be entrusted with a secret.

Her best friend from nursing school, with whom she has lost touch over the years, does indeed hand over a secret to Nina and then takes off so she no longer has responsibility for it. As the title tells you, it involves a little boy and a suitcase.

Because the book was originally written in Danish, the names of all of the characters are northern European and may be a bit confusing at first for the average native-speaker of English. I listened to this on audio, however, and it made the characters easily discernible from one another. The audio was so excellently done that I purchased a hard back of the book, and when two more novels followed the character of Nina, I had to buy those as well. Really good.

Beside the twists and turns - which are logical, but unexpected - these authors did a phenomenal job in drawing each of the characters. There are scenes of an impoverished young Lithuanian girl whose father finds an incredible deal on black-market button down shirts. He takes every bit of money they have to invest in these shirts, but sadly, nobody wants them - no matter the price. They hang for years, like white surrender flags, all over every surface of the family's tattered home as a signal that perhaps it is time to just give up.

The dual authors, Lene and Agneta, did a marvelous job throughout this story in showing us poverty or desperation or tenderness through actions of the various characters, not through simple narration.

The do-gooders in the story have huge flaws to their characters, and you eventually grow to understand them. Nina Borg is a frustrating protagonist with quirks that seem entirely random - until we learn about her childhood at the end of the story. Holy smokes - that ending was good. The handful of bad guys in the tale have enough subtle background written into them that they are perhaps not forgivable but absolutely understandable. We see their night time dreams and their lifelong longings - windows into them that make them seem real, not just two-dimensional monsters. What does it say about a book's writing when the reader gets a little misty eyed over a raging murderer? I highly recommend this book and would especially consider reading it before the follow-up stories entitled Invisible Murder and Death of a Nightingale.

THE SERIES... I saw the later books again illustrating a handful of excellent stories that tie to the situations a typical relief nurse - and somebody with Nina's psychological mindset - might encounter. The illegal immigrants that nurse Nina treats - under the radar - come from and occasionally end up in some terrifying conditions. These people bump into strange and dangerous circumstances, and I found all the books believable.

As a bonus, these novels introduce a handful of female characters who have been preyed upon by circumstance and take matters into their own hands without looking back. The series reminds me a bit of the good works of that wonderful Stieg Larsson. I gave this 5 stars and put it on my Favorites shelf.

[Razvan Banciu · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unexpectedly good novel. The rhythm is very alert, the story has a promising development, Nina and Sigita are two common women (perhaps too common, but that is a part of the spell) which have the power to take the right decisions and fight for them.
One single remark: reading the first pages of a book is (just my humble opinion) like entering a new house.
Or, exactly the first five-six pages of the novel are the poorest ones. So, I would not be surprised if there are readers who abandon the book right from the beginning. Which should pe a pity...

[Vivian]

I'm quitting this book. It might be interesting, it might not, but I really don't like four different point of views for telling a story. Twenty-two pages in, five chapters and four characters; it's a nauseating whirl. This isn't the first time I've seen this technique, it was another Nordic Noir book too, maybe it's a regional style issue, but I hate it.

[Florence (Lefty) MacIntosh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rate 2 ½ stars. Nina Borg, Red Cross nurse, wife and mother of two to the rescue! Reviewer's continually compare this to Steig Larson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Both are action packed by respected Danish authors. It is a really satisfying account of the rescue of an abducted child. My low rating is based on the writing style rather than the plot. It did not flow well, choppy and difficult to follow. In any event it’s still worth reading if this is your genre.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Boy in the Suitcase is yet another Scandinavian crime novel (this one from Denmark), and it's a solid thriller, but there's nothing that makes it too terribly memorable with the exception of the nearly unbelievable stupidity of one of the main characters, Nina Borg.

Nina is an educated woman, a nurse, but time after time in this novel, she makes unbelievably stupid decisions. Of course, had she made common-sense choices--nothing requiring great wisdom, just simple common sense--then there would have been a good deal less drama in the story. As I was reading the novel and observing some of the ridiculous actions that Nina took, I would often say to myself, "No one is really this dumb." But then I would think about the people encounter in my job (I work with the general public) and would correct myself: yes, some people--in fact, far too many people--really are as stupid as Nina. So, I guess the general imprudence of Nina's actions are actually realistic.

Overall, this was a quick, easy read. It was enjoyable but not particularly noteworthy.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love a good mystery/thriller, but I didn’t love this. The blurb sounded excellent, and the prologue immediately caught my attention. However, when I got to the 24% mark without really getting to a crime or feeling any thrills, it was time to move on. The focus of the book is on the lowest common denominator, and for someone like me who reads to take a break from everyday life, it just wasn’t pleasurable. The characters and plot were confusing, as the timeline shifted here and there and it was hard to get a sense of place and time. However, it was easy to get a sense of the crudest bits, as those were described in stark detail, including even the time talking about the abuse a woman had taken to her private bits and all that the doctor was noting.

So no, not my thing. I read for characters and plot, not for crudeness front and center. It felt more like a literary novel than a thriller.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the book first starts it is a little confusing, trying to figure out who is in what country, but easier as the book goes on and more is revealed. Very well written, with building suspense and a slow reveal. Although what is going on we know from the beginning but the why of it remains a mystery until almost the end.

[Kyriakos Sorokkou]

Άλλο ένα βιβλίο που αγόρασα από το παζαράκι βιβλίου τέλη του Μάη για το πρότζεκτ #translated_june
Αυτή τη φορά βρισκόμαστε στην όχι και τόσο τέλεια Δανία όπου μια νοσοκόμα του Ερυθρού Σταυρού παραλαμβάνει μία βαλίτσα που περιέχει μέσα ένα τετράχρονο αγοράκι. . .


Αποφασίζει να μάθει περί τίνος πρόκειται και έτσι μπαίνει σε ένα λαβύρινθο από εγκληματίες, διαφθοράς, και εγκλήματος.
Σίγουρα αυτό το αγοράκι κάποια μάνα το κλαίει και όντως έτσι συμβαίνει.
Έτσι μεταφερόμαστε παράλληλα και στη Λιθουανία, διότι το αγοράκι απ' εκεί είναι.
Και έτσι βλέπουμε δύο παράλληλες ιστορίες με κοινό παρονομαστή το αγοράκι οι οποίες στο τέλος θα ενωθούν.


Πώς ακριβώς τελειώνει δε θα σας πω αλλά ήταν ένα ενδιαφέρον ανάγνωσμα από 2 Δανές συγγραφείς που δείχνουν το άλλο πρόσωπο της κατά τα άλλα ειδυλλιακής και ιδανικής χώρας της Δανίας.
Πορνεία, εμπορεία παιδιών, δολοφονίες και πολλά άλλα.

Αξίζει να διαβαστεί και από λάτρεις αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας και crime fiction και από μη λάτρεις (όπως εγώ)

Βαθμολογία:8/10

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young boy is abducted in Lithuania. Red Cross nurse Nina finds him stuffed inside a suitcase in a railway station in Denmark, and begins the dangerous task of trying to unravel the mystery of who put him there and why.

This is more of a 3.5 stars to me. The pacing of the book is good and I enjoyed the multiple perspectives employed throughout. The mystery is intriguing and I found myself really identifying with parts of Nina's character- more specifically, her quirky, disordered thinking, and I really sympathised with her genuine desire to help this child.

One part of the plot really aggravated me, however. Nina's decision to not involve the police was very bizarre. I suspect this decision was taken to draw out the plot

The other Scandinavian thrillers I've read, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, and the Department Q series are both better. This is still worth a read.

[Tom Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Nina Borg story and may not be the last. The plot and the characters were interesting but the mystery took all of a minute to figure out. My biggest concern about the story is that I found myself thinking of the story based on the Hitchcock term McGuffin, which is an object whose sole importance is its ability to drive the story's plot forward. Party A steals the McGuffin from Party B. Party C ends up with the McGuffin and tries to find where it belongs while keeping it away from Party A. If the reader sees a kidnapped three year-old child as little more than a plot device, is that indicative of a lack of imagination on the part of the reader or the authors?

[Adina · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 50th book this year!

I started this novel since I was traveling to Denmark. As the story is set in Copenhagen I enjoyed reading about places I visited one or two days before.

It was interesting mystery novel. I thought the subject to be compelling and I liked some of the characters.

However, I found the main character very annoying. I understand she had the compulsive need to save the world but i was not ok with the fact that she neglected her own children.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book published in 2011 is the first in a trilogy, but is easily enjoyable as a stand-alone. A dark novel from Denmark, it explores the more unsavory elements of Scandinavia. The novel is set in Copenhagen Denmark and Vilnius Lithuania, with the action moving with the characters who travel between the two countries. It introduces Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, obsessed by tragedy in her early life, who devotes herself to helping the less fortunate, especially illegal immigrants. Driven by her strong sense of social justice, she often ignores her husband Morten and her two children Ida and Anton, a fact which has long been a contention in their marriage.

The writers use the first pages to introduce the main characters, which given the foreign landscape and unfamiliar character names, presents a challenge with all those blurry consonants and no sense of where the plot is headed. But that does not last long as the authors quickly get to the story they are about to tell which is easy to follow.

After meeting Nina and Morten Burg, readers are introduced to Sigita Ramoskiene, a single mother separated from her husband Darius who now lives in Germany. The couple have a little boy named Mikas who attends a playschool. Sigita works for a wealthy businessman who runs a construction company, lucky to have the fulltime job which allows her to pay the school fees.

Nina and Karin Konsted met years ago when they both attended nursing school. Karin has been working as a private nurse for a wealthy Danish businessman named Jan Marquart who is recovering from renal surgery. Karin lives in a flat above his garage, is well paid and appears to be in a good place in her life following a number of failed relationships. Jan has a wife Anne, who he loves dearly and together they have a young son named Aleksander.

We also meet Jucas, a huge, intimidating and strong man with a violent temper; it doesn’t take much to set him off. He loves his girlfriend Barbara and the two want to settle down, but Jucas wants to be sure he can support Barbara in the kind of life she deserves. To do that he needs money, and he has a plan to get it.

How all these characters come together becomes clear as each tells their story from their own point of view and the tense action takes over.

Karen asks Nina for help and Nina accepts, having no idea what she is getting into. Karin gives her the key to a locker at the train station and tells her to remove the suitcase she finds, warning her not to open it while still in the station and when she does open it, to make sure no one sees her. There is an urgency to her request and Karin tells Nina she must hurry. When Nina arrives at the station, she quickly locates the locker and pulls out the suitcase which is very heavy. She wonders what is inside and how Karin every expected her to drag it out of the station. Hidden in a dark corner, she opens the suitcase to find a naked young boy, curled up, drugged but still alive. He is small, about three years old. Shocked, Nina has no idea what is going on and then, as she watches from behind a post, a man approaches the locker, opens it and begins to kick and scream at it. In the process, he notices her and their eyes lock. Nina knows this man is up to no good.

She flees, knowing she should go to the authorities, but hesitates. Her work with illegal immigrants has showed her what happens to children who appear without identification or papers. They will send him to the camps with all the other unfortunate children they do not know what to do with. Children disappear from them every day, wandering into a world where others take advantage of them. Nina does not want this young boy to fall into the hands of the man who had come to retrieve the suitcase. She decides to find out who the child is, track down his mother and return him to his home.

Sigita is in hospital recovering from a case of alcohol poisoning after her stomach has been pumped. Someone found her at the bottom of the stairs where she had fallen and broken her arm. Her caregivers are neither kind nor helpful when she asks about her son Mikas and who is taking care of him. She reports Mikas missing to the police, who pay little attention to her and mistake her for a bad mother with a drinking problem. Even when Sigita explains how she caught a strange woman offering her son chocolate in the schoolyard, they remain unconcerned, content to wait and see if the child turns up. She feels little hope they will do anything. Meanwhile time is passing and she is growing frantic with worry.

When Nina tracks down Karin to demand an explanation of what is going on, she finds her friend beaten and dead. Nina runs from the scene, taking the child, determined to find out who he is and return him to his mother. The fact he does not speak English presents problems, but she gets around them. What is worse is knowing that angry man who was banging on the locker is chasing her. He wants the boy and after finding her friend dead, Nina knows he will go to whatever lengths necessary to get him back.

Meanwhile someone is waiting to receive the package that is the focus of everyone’s attention.

As the man chases Nina and the boy across Denmark the tension increases and the pace quickens. The writers have cleverly created an interesting twist many will not anticipate as they lead readers down the path they want them to follow. It creates an exciting, well-paced story and readers will find it hard to put down the book until everything is sorted.

This is the first time these two writers have worked together on a crime novel. They come from very different backgrounds, one a journalist and part time owner of a small publishing house, the other a successful author of children’s books. The two certainly know something about marketing and kudos is due to the one who came up with the title for what is essentially a simple plot. Someone put a boy in a suitcase and someone found him. The title creates the pull of a great hook as readers want to know: Who is the boy? Who put him there? And why?

What reader could pass that up?

[Suzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm on a roll with Danish mysteries after The Keeper of Lost Causes. I really liked the story in The Boy in the Suitcase. That it took place primarily in two locations - Lithuania and Denmark - added interest. I also enjoyed that it was not as dark as many Scandi mysteries of late trying to top The Millennium Trilogy. It had momentum from start to finish that kept me engaged, and I appreciated the crispness of the writing and that it came in at just under 9 hours of listening (about 300 pages) rather than the 12-18 hours that seems the norm lately. I will be interested to read the follow-up, Invisible Murder, since it felt like the main protagonist, Nina Borg, was almost accidentally involved in the solving of this mystery. She's a nurse, wife and mother vs. a detective or PI, but I would definitely not put this in the "cozy" category.

The Boy in the Suitcase was the 2013 Audie Award Winner for Solo Narration, Female. I found the narrator's voice irritating, but she did a masterful job of voicing the characters and creating pace and tension so I understand why she won the award! So the quality of her voice receded into the background as I was drawn in.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another entry in the Scandinavian mystery/thriller category. This one was very good and not nearly as violent as Steig Larsson's first book (I prefer the lower violence levels). Will read the next book then see if this is a series I want to stick with. This book had lots of characters moving in and out. I did not pay close enough attention to this in the beginning, so sometimes was confused about who was related to whom. I'll do better on the next book!

[Syahira · Rating 5 out of 5]

The label of #1 Scandinavian Thriller doesn’t lie. If Sweden have Man Som Hattar Kvinoor (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Denmark have Drengen i kufferten (The Boy in the Suitcase).


The story started with a woman towing a suitcase down to her car. Before she put the heavy suitcase in her bonnet, she open it and found a boy - barely alive - curled in it.

Then there was the quite mysterious monologues of a rich man called JAN who had some problem with his idea of a perfect house to his inate need to please his beautiful wife and his confusion with his wife's 'needs'. A mysterious picture of a boy and a mysterious phone call later, he toss his phone at the side of the cliff and then went to get it later to get himself a mysterious ticket to Zurich. While in the plane, the airline had a long setback from technical difficulties that made Jan anxious as the time drags from minutes to hours of delays. He contacted his secretary, KARIN, to bank-in a six-figure sum of money to a bank in Zurich.

Another character was JUČAS who wanted a family with his girlfriend, Barbara who was older than him and proceed 'making babies 'in a voyeuristic way at the side of a lake.

And another character named SIGITA who is a single mother of a toddler, Mikas. While playing in a empty playground, she caught a russian woman secretly giving her child's chocolate. When questioned, she found out that the woman have been giving her child chocolates before and told her off before she let her boy play in the sandbox. That was the last memory she had before she regained her consciousness in a hospital bet with a high alcohol level in her blood, broken arm and a concussion.... with her child missing.

And then we have NINA, a nurse who was helplessly watching a mean bastard luring his Ukranian fiance, who exhibited signs of sexual abuse, out from the clinic using a six year old child as hostage in his car. With Natasha's unwillingness to report his action against her fiance (and risked getting herself deported out of the country), Nina's hand were all tied up. A friend of her, KARIN, call her to meet up in a cafetaria.

Okay, for a couple of pages from the beginning of the story, thats a whole lot of characters to take note to.

Reading this, is like reading a tv series script. Loads of fade in and out and "show a tiny bit but never tell until the later part of the story like treats" thing. Come to think of it "The Killing" was based from a Danish's tv, so I'm really hoping they could consider making this book into adaptations so that Lene Kaaberbol would be famous enough that people notice her AND GET HER TO TRANSLATE THE THIRD SILVERHORSE BOOK!!! But the book was written in a way you expect from watching a movie, which can try your patience in some ways. I'm not kidding about making her famous thing, since this series was already in the third book but only this singular translated book of the series. Lene is one busy girl who want to write and translate her novels by herself. But why cant you just hire someone and then reedit everything?


The writing is just too realistic. Thats why I like Lene Kaaberbol when she wrote YA fantasy. The mystery itself is too emotionally nerve wrecking. The blood and the body fluids just what I expect from LK.


I never include quotes in my review but come on.....


A few beatings, a gang rape or two, and a note bearing the address of her family in some Estonian village—that was usually enough to break even the most obstinate spirit. And the real beauty of it all for the cynical exploiters was that ordinary people didn’t care. Not really.
.... pages later...
Marija frowned, and Nina guessed that she was searching for the right words, comforting and unthreatening enough that she wouldn’t upset the boy too much. A stab of outrage at Marija’s own capsized life went straight through Nina’s chest. She felt such rage at the thought of the Danish, Dutch, and German men who felt it was their perfect right to serially screw a young girl month after month until not the least remnant of the girly sweetness and the coltish awkwardness would remain. What do such men tell each other? That it is quite okay because it is her own choice? That they are offering her a way to make a little money and start a new life? How very grand of them.
thats not preachy, thats plain truth. Kinda like "flickan som lekte med elden" (TGWPWF).

What Sigita had to go through while the person who betrayed her 'scolded' her for searching for her lost son

“You feel so put-upon, don’t you?” she said. “Poor little Sigita who has had such a hard life. But did you ever pause to think what it’s been like for your mother? You taking off like that, not even leaving a note? She lost a daughter. Did you ever think about that?”


The authors were straight as it is with the treatment of women and girls in this book. If you need a gentle read reminiscent of Nancy Drew, this book is not for you. This book tackles child kidnapping, human trafficking, prostitution, manhandling, woman abuse, child abuse - that the writings itself was too real for some people.


*I read this during the time when it was confirmed that the unidentified body that was found burned in an abandoned building in Johore was the missing girl, Dirang, and just earlier the little boy who slipped into the lake in Titiwangsa Park and drowned. I actually saw the body floating face down in the lake from the tv and remember acutely where the boy in which part of the lake since I lived near Titiwangsa Park during my university days. To read this book with the details of horrified mother who found her boy missing really struck me to the bone. I hugged my 2 year old nephew and prayed my thanks to God and send my prayers to the mothers who lost their children. Dirang's kidnapping and murder was premeditated. There was a case of neglect of course but it was disheartening to found out your child in one moment of pure happiness and then suddenly they were snatched away in matter of seconds. This book will bring those fear alive.

*The book that made me read from 2am to 4am.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars, rounded up: 4 stars for the story itself, 3 stars for the narration.

"The Boy in the Suitcase," by Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Fris, is set in and around Denmark, and definitely falls under the "Scandinavian Mystery/Thriller" genre in setting and style. For the record, I really enjoy this genre.

The first few chapters are very confusing with new characters being introduced continuously. On top of that, the narrator wasn’t much able to differentiate the voices of the female characters, making it even more confusing.

The twisted web of the plot involves several interesting and well-developed characters: Wealthy Jan Marquat, able to buy whatever he wants; Lithuanian Jucas, with a fierce temper, and his girlfriend named Barbara; Sigita Ramoskiene, mother of Mikas, the boy in the title; and Nina Borg, a Danish Red Cross nurse who is unable to say no to any of the world’s downtrodden. I was especially enamored with Sigita and her back story, which ended up being a somewhat surprising plot twist in the book.

All of these people are linked, and it takes a while for the authors to connect the dots. Nina, in a misguided attempt to help a friend, winds up trying to protect a terrified toddler who speaks no Danish. The authors change POV in each chapter, switching between Nina, Jan, Jucas, Sigita, and a few others. It becomes obvious that Sigita, Nina, and the little boy are in grave danger.

Although there is a very high level of suspense, the plot hinges on a far-fetched twist that required a near-complete suspension of reality. Even still, the protagonists’ welfare and how the story plays out drove me to finish the book. In spite of its over-the-top conclusion, this is an engrossing provocative thriller. I’ll definitely be continuing this series.

[Gordana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Predobra!!!! ;)

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gentle reader, I feel I wasted the hours I spent reading this novel. However, you may feel quite different and love the thrills and chills, of which the plot provides much quite satisfactorily. Mothers with tots who love 'child in danger - mom fights back ferociously' thrillers may get some happiness, I don't know. I watch and enjoy some Lifetime Channel movies too (don't judge me), so I know many females have a liking for 'mom hunts down the MF who took my kid' plots. Of course, there are all of those 'father destroys entire army with his bare hands to get his kidnapped daughter back' movies, i.e., 'Taken', 'Commando', etc.

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls002827497/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categ...

I have seen many of these, to my regret occasionally.

'The Boy in the Suitcase' is a wonderful chase thriller, vaguely reminiscent of 'The Maltese Falcon', for the most part - as long as you ignore extremely improbable motives behind the pursuit of the missing item in this book - the boy. This novel alternates mostly between three viewpoints: our main heroine, nurse Nina Borg; the frantic mother Sigita; and the kidnappers.

I was confounded by the reveal at the end, then guffawing with disbelief, by the motives or supposed ignorance of many of the characters at the finish, so that I was left trying to decide whether to give this mystery one star or three. I slept on it, then decided to rate it entirely by my disappointment, rather than consider all of the other things I usually do, like the architecture, the writing, and the excitement or entertainment or enlightenment.

Honestly, I actually am very casual at ignoring plot holes or improbabilities - you HAVE to suspend a LOT of judgement to enjoy almost all published fiction, really - but I simply couldn't in this case. Usually, I have more problems with writing style and the emotional tone than plot holes.

The ending is not the only improbable plot point, though. There is one at the beginning. The 3-year-old boy's abduction and transportation inside luggage is done without harm despite lack of oxygen, heat and the usual battering of luggage (not a spoiler since hiding or chasing the living tot is the point of most of the novel.)

It was essential this boy or at least, his kidney should survive, so I don't understand why what was done with the boy was done with such overwhelming carelessness and inattention to the details and such risks of death or serious injury possible in the delivery. I cannot see why this character who put the story in motion would be so lackadaisical and sloppy in planning. Kidnapping a child is not like a burglary, either, for the police.

If I were to kidnap a child or hire someone, I would have been working out every detail, seeking to resolve every issue that mattered to me in such a caper. He wants the kid's kidney for his adopted son, but how was he going to get the kidney out of the toddler and into the other boy? He doesn't care if or how you cut it out of the tot, or how or what time it takes you to deliver it - on ice, kicked around inside a container by baggage handlers, no refrigeration, rotting, inside the kid or outside, dead or alive, whatever. What doctors for the operation did he plan on?

Then there is the motivation for half of the other characters, all of which is a stretch for me to believe, beginning with Nina Borg's decision to not ever contact the police at any point. Her backstory, told at the end of the book, is supposed to explain that, but instead it simply confirmed my opinion this story is absolutely wrong emotionally.

When Nina was a child, she finds her father's body bleeding out in the bathtub, an apparent suicide, so now she must save all of the helpless and wrecked, even at the expense of her own children and husband, who she deserts without looking back all of the time despite the obvious emotional trauma for her children of her choosing other children over them.

I feel such do-gooders have many motives - escaping survivor's guilt is one of them, but I think Nina would be a helicopter mom to her kids in these circumstances, not always looking for a reason to avoid her family, especially her children. Do-gooders who save everyone EXCEPT their own kids are working from a different set of darker motives, IMHO, that results in an obsessive compulsion which sacrifices her own children to save another's. Sometimes a parent will SAY they love their kids and husband, but what they DO is destroy them because they actually hate their role as mom and wife, whether it is because of the endless family responsibilities or their unsuitability as a mother or wife. Since this is the first of the Nina Borg's mysteries, perhaps this introduced dynamic will work out in other plots.

The mother of the boy, the character Sigita, is the only one who behaves and thinks as a real person might. Hooray for that! Extra star awarded for Sigita!