Death of a Nightingale

4 of 5
Death of a Nightingale
368 pages; Soho Crime
Dedicated to the point of obsession, Danish Red Cross Nurse Nina Borg channels all of her energy into Coal-House Camp, a Copenhagen refugee center. There she connects with the anxious, mostly mute, 8-year-old Ukranian girl, Katerina, whose mother, Natasha, is on the run. Accused of murdering her fiancé, Natasha finally turns to Nina to protect Katerina and prove her own innocence. Alternating with the mother-daughter saga is the story of two sisters growing up more than half a century earlier under the iron fist of "Uncle Stalin" in 1930s Soviet Union. How the lives of these four women and one child intersect and influence each other makes Kaaberbøl and Friis's third installment such a moving story. The two tell a socially conscious—and, at times, critical—tale about immigration issues that apply both to Denmark and the U.S., without sacrificing the urgency of the best thrillers. Even more intriguing is Borg—a crusader, a feisty and prickly seeker of justice who, "in her most glacial voice," asks: "What the hell makes you think that I am anybody's victim?"
— Jordan Foster