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Series Review
When You Save a Life You Save a Whole World
In each of the three books in the Nina Borg Mystery/ Thriller Books series, Danish nurse Nina Borg gets into big trouble when she puts herself between vulnerable people and the criminal predators who threaten them. Set in Denmark.
Shocking literary thrillers venture into the darkest corners of contemporary Europe
I love these dark literary thrillers because they shock me to my socks and because they turn stock characters--the Eastern European prostitute, the Eastern European thug, the African refugee, the Roma street kid, etc.--into real people with real lives.
Series Guide
Read them all. Start anywhere.
Book Summaries
Below, the books in chronological order:
The Boy in the Suitcase (2011, Nina Borg Mystery/ Thriller Books #1)
Nina finds a boy in a suitcase in a Copenhagen train station.Invisible Murder (2012, Nina Borg Mystery/ Thriller Books #2)
Hungarian Roma refugee hunts for his missing brother. Death of a Nightingale (2013, Nina Borg Mystery/ Thriller Books #3)
A young Ukrainian refugee is accused of murder. Interwoven with narrative of the 1934 Ukrainian famine.Meet Europe's Invisible People
Borg works at a Red Cross Refugee Camp in Copenhagen, Denmark where she meets Western Europe's invisible people: refugees and asylum seekers who are fleeing war and poverty and desperately hoping to find a safe place in Western Europe. Western Europe does not want these people and doesn't care much when bad things happen to them. And bad things do happen to them. Very bad things.
So what happens when a middle-class nurse leaves the comfort of her life to try and save a child who, say, is to be sold into the sex-slave market? All her humanitarian friends--including her husband--are shocked at her bad taste and skewed priorities.
Her husband has a point because when Nina gets caught up saving someone, she completely neglects her own family. (If she were a man, this wouldn't be so disturbing, but women are held to a different standard.)
When Nina was younger, she worked in places like Darfur. Then she came back to Denmark for marriage and family. But something had happened to her: she couldn't turn her back on suffering, especially the suffering of children. So she feels compelled to jump in--even at great personal cost--when she thinks she can save a life.
A really interesting premise for a thriller series.
The other nifty thing about these books is they show complicated chain reactions of crimes. Nothing simplistic here.
Book Reviews
Nina Borg Series
(From newest to oldest; Dates refer to publication in the US in English;
# refers to series order)
Above, from top to bottom:
Asylum seekers; Anti-foreign protest sign; Roma kids in Hungary
(2011, Nina Borg Mystery/ Thriller Books #1)
by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis
Translated into English by Lene Kaaberbol
WINNER! New York Times Book Review Notable Crime Book of 2011 WINNER! Indie Next List Nov 2011 Pick WINNER! Harald Morgensen Award for Best Danish Thriller of the Year
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Shocking, shocking, shocking story.
Plus: A darker side of Denmark
Plus: A female hero who neglects family for work
(Bestsellers. Noir aka Hardboiled. Private investigators. Female Heroes. Literary. Set in Denmark.)
(2012, Nina Borg Mystery/ Thriller Books #2)
by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis
Translated into English by Lene Kaaberbol and Tara Chace
A shocking story
Plus: Europe's underground railroad
Plus: Life in Hungary's Roma communities
(Bestsellers. Noir aka Hardboiled. Private investigators. Female Heroes. Literary. Set in Denmark.)
(2013, Nina Borg Mystery/ Thriller Books #3)
by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis
Translated into English by Elisabeth Dyssegaard
NOT YET REVIEWED
(Bestsellers. Noir aka Hardboiled. Private investigators. Female Heroes. Literary. Set in Denmark.)
Other series set in Denmark:
- Department Q Thrillers by Jussi Adler-Olsen
- Detective Louise Rick/ Reporter Camilla Lind Mystery Books by Sara Blaedel
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