THE CONSIDERATE KILLER, the newly published installment in the Nina Borg series, comes with the news that it will be the last, effectively rendering the series a quartet. I did a little bit of digging but can’t find a reason for this, not that there necessarily has to be or that it’s even anyone’s business. Nevertheless, I’m sad to see it go. If this indeed is the finale, the series will end on a high-flying note.

Nina is a nurse by profession and an activist at heart with a penchant for involving herself in tragedies in her native Denmark and beyond. The collaborative efforts of authors Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis (with the translation talents of Elisabeth Dyssegaard) have taken Nina into all sorts of dangerous territories at the cost of her health and marriage, among other things. THE CONSIDERATE KILLER ups the ante a bit when Nina is marked for death. Things begin with a rather abrupt, yet unsuccessful, attempt on her life when she is attacked in a parking garage by a very polite, though ultimately inept, would-be assassin. She is hospitalized as a result with no clue as to why someone would target her for such a thing.

"If this indeed is the finale, the series will end on a high-flying note.... [W]e have four fine books in a series that demands to be read and re-read."

After this initial vignette, the book alternates narratives between time and locale. One involves Nina in the present in Viborg, Denmark, where she is a somewhat uneasy caregiver for her mother, who is receiving treatment for cancer. The Philippines is the other setting, beginning four years ago and moving in jumps and starts toward the present.

The seemingly unrelated storyline involves three new medical students --- Vincent, Victor and Vadim --- who strike up a friendship and form the V-team, as it were. Vadim comes from a wealthy, well-to-do family, while Vincent is from a working-class family and is attending school on a scholarship, even as he slowly comes to the realization that the work involved is beyond him. Victor is a gentle giant, a scholar from an impoverished background who wants to bring medical care to those who might be unable to afford it otherwise. The three personalities begin sorting themselves out, and the dynamics in the relationships change, as do the outside lives of each of them --- and not for the better.

These widely divergent plotlines begin to converge, if ever so slowly, about a third of the way into the novel when a relationship from the past is established between Nina and a member of the V-team. However, the question that takes much longer to answer is why Nina is being targeted. Her lover Søren, on sick leave from the police, is there to help, but what neither he nor Nina realizes is that his efforts to assist her are targeting him for death as well. Ultimately, both will find themselves badly damaged and tested to their limits and beyond, and may be found wanting.

I’m going to miss these novels. More will be forthcoming from both authors, at least individually and hopefully collectively, at some point. For now, though, we have four fine books in a series that demands to be read and re-read.