Book #3: The Girl Who Played With Fire

Oh, man.

The first book in this series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, was a recommendation from my sister-in-law. It sounded a bit too much like a crime thriller for my taste, but I gave it a shot. It took about 30 pages for me to be completely engrossed. It's about a journalist (Mikael Blomkvist) who is hired by a wealthy business tycoon to research the disappearance of his niece Harriet, who vanished 40 years earlier. This leads to to discovery of twisted family secrets and the introduction of one of my favorite characters in any book I have ever read -- Lisbeth Salander. She's a socially awkward borderline-psychopath with a photographic memory and a gift for investigation. She works with Blomkvist to solve the mystery of Harriet's disappearance.

The Girl Who Played With Fire centers on Lisbeth Salander and her checkered past. She winds up in the middle of a major crime investigation, which opens up an entire world of criminals who all seem to have a link to Salander. There isn't much else I can say without spoiling either this book or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but I will say that this book had me constantly guessing and theorizing about the crimes. Literally, in the middle of the day, I would be contemplating a possible explanation for what I had read the night before.

These books are beautifully written, although part of that may be due to the translator. Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist (perhaps his own inspiration for Blomkvist), and the books are translated into English from Swedish. (The books are set in Stockholm.) The thing is, there is so much more to these books than the mystery at the center of the plot. The characters are so well-developed -- it's impossible not to get pulled into their stories. The third and final book in the series is The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which is due out in May 2010. I clearly cannot wait.

Unfortunately, Larsson passed away recently and apparently left no manuscripts behind but the three in this series. I wholeheartedly recommend this series to practically any reader. It's really got something for everybody. I finished it earlier today and still can't stop thinking about it.

Read January 30, 2010 to February 14, 2010.

5/5 Stars

--C