Book Summary and Reviews of The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol

The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol

The Boy in the Suitcase

A Nina Borg Mystery

by Lene Kaaberbol

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • Published:
  • Nov 2011, 304 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can't say no when someone asks for help - even when she knows better. When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous project yet. Inside the locker is a suitcase, and inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive.
 
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? When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy's are in jeopardy, too. In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is trying to hunt him down.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"A must for Scandinavian crime fiction aficionados." - Library Journal

"Stieg Larsson fans will find a lot to like in The Boy in the Suitcase... [Nina Borg] will strike many, particularly female readers, as a more appealing version of Lisbeth Salander." - Publishers Weekly

"This is a thrilling and most urgent novel reflecting a terrifying reality." - Maj Sjowall, bestselling co-author of the Martin Beck series

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

"Extraordinary... A crime novel where everything is perfectly done." - The Weekend Newspaper (Denmark)

This information about The Boy in the Suitcase was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Lene Kaaberbol Author Biography

Photo: Lisbeth Holten

Lene Kaaberbøl was fifteen years old when her first two books were published, and since then she has written over thirty novels and children's books. She has won several national and international awards for her fiction, and her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. The coauthor of The Boy in the Suitcase, Invisible Murder, and Death of a Nightingale, she was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal and lives near Aarhus, Denmark.

Other books by Lene Kaaberbol at BookBrowse
  • Doctor Death jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Boy in the Suitcase, try these:

  • The Slip jacket

    The Slip

    by Lucas Schaefer

    Published 2026

    About this book

    For readers of Jonathan Franzen and Nathan Hill comes a haymaker of an American novel about a missing teenage boy, cases of fluid and mistaken identity, and the transformative power of boxing.

  • Margo's Got Money Troubles jacket

    Margo's Got Money Troubles

    by Rufi Thorpe

    Published 2025

    About this book

    A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman's attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

  • The Distant Dead jacket

    The Distant Dead

    by Heather Young

    Published 2021

    About this book

    A young boy finds himself at the center of a murder mystery in this timely and twisty thriller from the author of the acclaimed The Lost Girls - a compelling and indelible story set in small town America that examines the burden of guilt, the bitter price of forgiveness, and the debts we owe our dead, both recent and distant.

We have 10 read-alikes for The Boy in the Suitcase, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
Who Said...

The moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.