Death of a Nightingale

Summary

Natasha Doroshenko, a Ukrainian woman who has been arrestedfor murdering her Danish fiancé, escapes police custody on her way to aninterrogation in Copenhagen’s police headquarters. It isn’t the first timeNatasha has lost a partner to violent ends: her first husband was alsomurdered three years earlier, in Kiev, and in the same manner, his handsbroken. At the same time, someone tries to abduct Natasha’s eight-year-olddaughter from the Red Cross center that has been caring for her while hermother, an illegal immigrant, was in jail.

Danish Red Cross nurse Nina Borg has been followingNatasha’s case for several years now, since Natasha first took refuge at acrisis center where Nina works. Nina, who had tried to help Natasha leave herabusive Danish fiancé more than once, just can’t see the young Ukrainian motheras a vicious killer. But in her effort to protect Natasha’s daughter anddiscover the truth, Nina realizes there is much she doesn’t know about thiswoman and her past. The mystery has long and bloody roots, going back to aterrible famine that devastated Stalinist Ukraine in 1934.