I just finished the third book, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest." Just as book two was, this is another runaway train. Larsson made me feel that events followed one another in rapid-fire succession, even though they took place over a period of two months.
Caution: if you aren't reading this immediately subsequent to finishing "The Girl Who Played with Fire," go back to that book and read the final couple of chapters or you'll be lost for the first two or three chapters of this one. There's no summing up, no "previously," no filling-in of back story. The first sentence picks you up and drags you in.
Lisbeth Salander is being carted via helicopter to a hospital for treatment of several bullet wounds, and Blomkvist is trying to explain to a monumentally stupid cop that the man inside a woodshed is a former KGB defector who's been running a criminal trafficking enterprise with the assent of part of the Swedish State Police, and that the guy guilty of several murders in Stockholm is tied to a street sign a mile or so away. Suffice to say, it takes Blomkvist's arrival at the main police station before any of this is believed. By that time, one of the two cops sent to retrieve the murderer is dead, the other savagely beaten and the murderer long gone with their weapons and car.
That takes you up to about page 13.
The balance of the book has Blomkvist trying to clear Salander's name with the cops; some of the cops recognizing that there is rot in high places within the State Police, and Salander able to help herself with her network of hackers.
This is a remarkably satisfying book; some things from Salander's background are resolved, others are not, but it's not a cliffhanger like the second book. It's a damned shame there won't be any more Salander books from Larsson; when he died he supposedly had half of a fourth book finished, but I can't imagine it being published.
Posted by Linkmeister at June 7, 2010 12:01 AM | TrackBackSo the first book in the trilogy is "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", right? Then on to "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and finish with "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest".
I vaguely remember you talking about the first book, but I forgot to write it down at the time. I'm going to have to start taking notes when you recommend books. :-)
Posted by: Illanoy Gal at June 6, 2010 11:46 PMThe three are worth reading? I need some *good* books, but I don' t want to purchase (I am an avid e-reader) until I get your blessing. :)
BTW, I refuse to read anything Twilight anything.
Posted by: Tomorrow at June 7, 2010 06:09 AMGrins to both of you.
You've got the names and order right, IG, and Shelley, they're definitely worth reading. The first one ("Tattoo") is a little slow to get started, and there's a familiarization problem with names and bureaucracies for non-Swedish readers, but by the time you're at page 100 or so that's over with.
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 7, 2010 08:38 AM