Author: Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis
First Published: January 2010 (English: 11.2011)
Publisher: Soho Press
320 pages (ebook)
This is the June book of the bookclub my friends and I participate in. It was published into English not too long ago, and seeing how it was quite popular in its own country (I think it was originally a Danish book?) I wanted to give it a go. The only other Scandinavian crime thriller novel I’ve read is, of course, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I love, so I wanted to read more books like it.
The story is about — you guessed it — a boy in a suitcase. Nina is a bit OCD when it comes to people needing help — and her good friend Karin from when they were back in nursing school together, needs her help. Karin’s boss has asked Karin to pick up a suitcase from the train station, but Karin has enlisted the help of Nina instead. Nina goes to pick it up, only to find a naked, drugged, but alive, 3 year old boy inside! Believing her friend must have had a reason for not already calling the police, Nina decides to take the boy to Karin. However, Karin’s dead and Nina’s afraid the killer is going to come after her next. In the meantime, we also have the boy’s mother, Sigita, frantically trying to find out who has taken her little boy, and why anybody would want to kidnap him in the first place.
Right from the get-go, this book was an amazing, addictive read. I had no troubles at all staying engrossed in the plot, and I stayed up way too late trying to finish it (I think it was 4AM when I did!) It’s definitely a bit of a mystery novel, although you are not trying to find out who did what. As the reader, you are already quite aware of who’s who, and even the bit about Karin dying, well, they make it quite plain as to who committed that crime. The mystery element of it is not who the boy is either — that’s very obvious too. No, the mystery part is why one of the characters wants to kidnap that specific boy, and in finding that out, you have to piece together how everyone is related to one another. It’s a bit like solving a puzzle when you already have all the pieces; you want to find out what the big picture is. And it is quite a believable story! I mean, the chances of it actually happening might be a bit rare, but it could happen. I love that realism aspect to it.
I thought the characters were very brilliantly well done, especially Nina. You have to give a reason as to why any sensible person would not call the police when they find a drugged, naked boy in a suitcase, and would actually continue the favor they set out to do even when the friend dies! Nina can’t say no when someone needs help, so much that it’s actually almost like a psychological disorder and it completely cripples her family. I thought that was a good kind of “twist” to her character. She wants to be a hero, she gets ideas in her head of people praising her and telling her how appreciative and in her debt they are to her, so she grits her teeth and continues what she’s doing even if it may lead to a very dangerous, life-threatening situation. To do what she did, you need a character who’s not sensible, and Nina and her problem was perfect for it.
The writing was really great too, it was very easy to read. There was never too much of anything, like descriptions or characters mulling in their thoughts, which can be quite tedious to read if over done, but I thought this book did a great job balancing what needs to be said. Reading this book was like watching a movie in my head, and I loved every moment. Definitely recommend this book!
My Rating: 5/5
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