The Boy in the Suitcase

September 12, 2011
In this riveting first in a new Danish crime series, hard-working Copenhagen nurse Nina Borg can’t say no to nursing school friend Karin’s cryptic request to pick up a package at the train station. There, stuffed in a suitcase inside a locker, Nina finds a three-year-old boy, drugged but alive. A near altercation with a violent man, who arrives at the locker soon after and is furious to find the suitcase empty, quashes Nina’s instincts to call the police. Child in tow, she tries to track down Karin to understand her involvement and discover whether the boy, Mikas, who speaks only Lithuanian, is a victim of sex trafficking. Meanwhile, others are searching frantically for Mikas, from his mother in Vilnius to the men who’ll stop at nothing to recover their “cargo.” Without flashy plot devices, Kaaberbøl and Friis let Nina’s particular blend of stoicism and vulnerability guide the story.

Starred review from October 1, 2011

Red Cross nurse Nina Borg, who works helping illegal refugees, gets a call from an estranged friend begging her to pick up a package in one of the lockers at the main Copenhagen train station. The package turns out to be a suitcase with a drugged three-year-old boy inside. When the friend is murdered, Nina realizes she's caught in the middle of a kidnapping case. Nina must use her connections in the refugee community to discover the identity and nationality of the child before she can find out who is behind his abduction. Nina is a complicated, flawed character, conflicted by her compulsion to help strangers rather than stay home with her family. VERDICT Although Nina is the protagonist, she is only one of several voices, and it takes a while to get used to the switching among points of view. Readers who hang on will enjoy the fast-paced plot that takes a surprising twist when the multiple story lines are finally connected. Winner of the 2008 Harald Mogensen award for Best Danish Crime Novel and a finalist for the Scandinavian Glass Key Award (losing to Stieg Larsson), this trilogy debut has also been translated into nine languages. A must for Scandinavian crime fiction aficionados. [See Prepub Alert, 8/2/11.]--Jean King, West Hempstead P.L., NY

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2011
The first in a best-selling Scandinavian series to be translated into English introduces the possibly unreliable and definitely unstable Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse in Copenhagen, whose desire to help others frequently supersedes family and personal responsibilities. Which is why she finds herself retrieving a suitcase from the train station for her old friend, Karin, only to discover a small boy inside. When she spots a thuggish-looking man trying to kick down the locker door a few minutes later, she panics and flees, setting off a series of chain reactions that involve the kidnappers, the man who hired them, and the mother of the young boy. This fast-paced, suspenseful thriller intertwines several stories, gradually revealing the motivations of multiple characters and building tremendous suspense. The novel should be recommended to anyone who enjoys sa Larsson's Rebecka Martinsson series and, especially, Christian Jungersen's The Exception (2007), another Danish thriller focused on a group of female characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)