Book Review: Borderline by Liza Marklund a fascinating take on Swedish third world politics and a thrilling well researched story of hostage taking in Somalia

When Swedish journalist Annika Bengtzen ‘s unfaithful husband Thomas Samuelsson is kidnapped and held hostage by Somalian extremists whilst attending a routine conference in Kenya she is forced to work with his boss Jimmy Halenius to negotiate his release.  As the negotiations continue and the captives’ families are contacted one by one the tension mounts.  Annika finds herself on the receiving end of the Swedish press and is forced to consider her options whilst simultaneously her family and friends let her down at this crisis time in her life.  Meanwhile, The Evening Post, the newspaper she works for, strives to bag the media market by manipulating facts surrounding the recent murders of women in  the Stockholm area.

I found this a fascinating read.  Marklund clearly researched the storyline and wrote very convincingly about kidnapping and hostage taking in the more unstable African countries.  She tempered the horror of the abuses perpetrated against the captives by including factual accounts of events as far back as the Rwandan crisis which lead to the current kidnappings.  I was also fascinated to gain insight into the Swedish political system as normally we see the UK or USA negotiations.

But what I liked most was the ‘human’ element  of Borderline – Marklund delved deeply into her main character Annika’s and her husband’s relationship.  Her anger and frustration were apparent as was her desire to do the right thing for her children’s father, whilst alongside this Annika’s very moral observations let us see her faithless husband for what he was.  The kidnapper’ backstory was interesting and a welcome reminder that bad experiences can lead us to make bad choices.

If you like Scandi crime I’d seriously recommend this, but you don’t need to be a Scandi fan to love this.

Amazon Kindle 89p PB £7.39

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Borderline-Liza-Marklund-ebook/dp/B00KY3N3OS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421336888&sr=8-1&keywords=borderline+liza+marklund