The Boy in the Suitcase

A Nina Borg Mystery

By: Lene Kaaberbøl - author/translator, Agnete Friis

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Solo Narration - Female, 2013

Audie Award Nominee, Best Thriller/Suspense Category, 2013

Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is trying to live a quiet life. The last thing her husband wants is for her to go running off on another dangerous mission to help illegal refugees. But when Nina's estranged friend, Karin, leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, and begs her to take care of its contents, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous case yet.

Because inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive. Nina's natural instinct is to rescue the boy, but she knows the situation is risky. 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? In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is hunting him down. When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy's are in jeopardy, too.

©2011 Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis (P)2011 AudioGO

Critic reviews

"This past-paced, suspenseful thriller intertwines several stories, gradually revealing the motivations of multiple characters and building tremendous suspense." ( Booklist)

"Warning! If you open this book, your life will be on stand-by." ( Elle, Denmark)

"The surprise ending is perfect. You won’t be able to put this down." ( Romantic Times)

OK

Is there anything you would change about this book?

It started a little slowly and was a bit hard to follow as it jumped around at the beginning.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

suitable

What does Katherine Kellgren bring to the story that you wouldn???t experience if you just read the book?

protagonist's perspective was credible

Do you think The Boy in the Suitcase needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

not really... but not impossible

and it all comes together

there were several stories going on but she did a good job of bringing them all together and explaining why the bad things were happening. I enjoyed it.

Great who done it audible, Eager listener I like

Great who done it audible eager listener I would recommend this for listening audience anytime.

Engrossing story and character dialogues

The Boy in the Suitcase features a plausibly traumatized trauma nurse who finds herself confronted with a situation in which going straight to the police or her emotionally distanced husband might make matters worse for herself, for the friend who trusts her to help, or for the foreign child she is trying to return to his mother. The sense of being trapped between layers of conflicting loyalties, rules and knowledge gleaned from bitter experiences is well drawn in this thriller that dashes along to a refreshingly reasonable set of conclusions. Perhaps best of all, everyone, including the worst of the villains, gets to be multidimensional before the tale is completely told. My only regret with this audio edition is that the narrator, who delivers multiple accents, languages and voices flawlessly and so convincingly, for some reason chose to make her narrative voice unrelentingly shrill. This makes for a rather tense listening experience in which dialogue between multiple characters with various international accents flows as if a full cast of welk-trained actors is in the recording studio, except for the interjected shrieks of the narrator's commentary and descriptions of ongoing action. Maybe solo performances of these audiobooks could use a director?

This audiobook is very well-read...

The actual content of the book is good but the way in which it is narrated is beyond spectacular. I definitely suggest that you listen rather than read this book

Good Story . . . Needless Language

From Lithuania to Denmark, the story of the boy in the suitcase, is riveting, scary, and confusing . . . it keeps you on alert, waiting, listening, hoping . . . it is evident from the beginning that evil is at work . . . but I have to say right off that the story would have been stronger and better if the degrading, sexual language had been left out . . . it was plenty to imagine the intent of the kidnappers . . . the crudeness of the expletives was not helpful and did not add to the story . . . that said, I could not stop listening . . . I had to know about the boy, his mother, and I cared deeply about what happened to him . . . I liked Nina, rooted for her and her family . . . the outcome was worth the wait . . .but I could have done without the little "hook" at the end . . .

Swiss Cheese

I missed a few things along the way! probably because I was too distracted at the beginning of the story when I should have been paying closer attention to detail.

As it was, there were too many holes in my comprehension like how can a woman who finds a little boy, drugged, stuffed in a suitcase in a locker, not go STRAIGHT to the police? Then again, I supposed if she had - there’d be no story.

A lot of little things bugged me, for example: how can the police not take a mother seriously when she reports her 3 year old child missing??? Even if she is a deadbeat (which she wasn’t). And how can the father of said child react so casually when he learns about it (quote: text me when he’s home) and not jump on a plane to come join his (albeit estranged) family and help in the search?? And what was her top secret work file all about??

Like I said, I must have missed some crucial details… or perhaps it’s just one of those things you’re not supposed to question? Just go with the flow for the sake of the story. That’s what I ultimately did.

Holes aside, I still enjoyed it – mostly because it was short. This kind of genre is not really my style; but this book it wasn’t so bad. I’ll probably read the next one in the series, although I am not committing!

Hanging onto the Steering Wheel

Would you listen to The Boy in the Suitcase again? Why?

I liked the characters in this story and the way the story unwound. If I listened again, I'm sure I would pick up on things I missed.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

I listened to this while commuting, and found that I was hanging onto the steering wheel as if I was being chased! Great prose.

What does Katherine Kellgren bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Good use of voices and temporal qualities to give you the feeling of the environment.

Will hook you in from the start

The story is expertly written. The reader is fully sold on the events and characters right from the start. A first class piece of writing

Not what I expected

I was definitely expecting more from the story but it was flat. I tried to keep focus but I kept getting lost. It took me awhile to finish it. Definitely not one I would recommend.