Finished
The Boy in the Suitcase,
Invisible Murder, and
Death of a Nightingale by
Lene Kaaberbøl &
Agnete Friis, #1-3 in their mystery series staring Nina Borg, Intrepid Would-Be World-Saving Dysfunctional Danish Underground Nurse, which I got during a recent Soho Press sale and started reading during a bus trip to drop off some library books (and pick up even more).
These were surprisingly good and worthy of the Barry Award nomination which SYKM says that the 1st received in translation. The plots are twisty and intricate as one would expect, but actually have very unexpected motivations for what would seem to be rather standard crime thriller setups, which gives a decided touch of novelty to the cases, which make good use of the ongoing tensions between Eastern European refugees and Middle Eastern immigrants and native Danes, as well as former Soviet bloc history and current conditions.
The amateur sleuth is also interesting, being a rather emotionally dysfunctional but professionally highly competent figure, similar to Sarah Lund in the Danish TV series
Forbrydelsen (The Killing), in a way that's usually reserved for male sleuths. I like that sometimes when it comes down to hard choices between her personal life and her desire to help others—both at the refugee centre where she has an official day job, and in the underground network which treats illegal residents of Denmark who cannot obtain official healthcare without risking deportation—what would seem to be the typical domestic resolution isn't always taken, and that what she's doing significantly impacts her relationship with her family and friends, sometimes in very negative ways that can't be smoothed over by the successful closing of a case or even committing to devoting more time to her personal circle.
Medium-high recommend if you think you might like this sort of series. Nina's work often revolves around children at risk, so that might be a dealbreaker for Gentle Readers who are sensitive about that in crime thrillers, but these are quite good stories which often incorporate a flavour of local history (possibly made up, possibly not) and culture into their cases. I'll be looking up the 4th from the library the next time I make a trip.
Also finished
Kristina Ohlsson's
The Chosen, 5th in her series starring Fredrika Bergman, Intrepid Civilian Liaison Investigative Analyst, which was one of my library pickups. This continues the move of the series from a simple elite local crime investigative unit to one with Swedish intelligence community ties, reflecting the author's actual former day job. It's okay on those terms, but I liked the older books more and was heartened by a hint that it may be getting back to its crime unit roots in the future.
Anyway, the story in this one involves murders at a Jewish community school, which is trying to figure out whether it's a hate crime, serial killer, or personally targeted, since some of the associated adults may or may not have deniable ties to sensitive Israeli government stuff. There's a whole bunch of spy versus spy surveillance in it, and the welcome return of a supporting character who got shuffled offstage a few books ago because reasons.
Overall a solid case, if a little on the everyone-is-implausibly-connected-to-it side, and it was nice to get the hinted backstory of an interesting supporting character introduced in #4. But the author once again succumbs to the tendency to do some highly emotionally manipulative melodramatic setup at the very beginning that a particular character will suffer a terrible tragedy by the end, in a not-particularly-skilled manner which falls really flat. Obvious fake-out is obvious and I managed to figure out who it was really supposed to apply to even before she started laying down the actual red herring trail in the main narrative.
(Also, that particular trick worked a lot better in book #3.)
A decent continuation to the series thus far, and I'm still interested in reading further installments.