Books: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (2010)

In the finale of this series, Stieg Larsson pulls out all the bells and whistles to give us a satisfying ending to the arc started in "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" and continued in "The Girl Who Played With Fire."

In "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest", we begin only moments after the second book ended, with Lisbeth Salander near death after being shot and buried alive by her father and half-brother. Of course, she does survive. But survival comes at a cost. While she’s been cleared of the murders she was accused of in the second book, she still is facing charges related to her attack on her father. But the sinister forces that had her declared mentally incompetent and that had sent her to a cruel institution when she was a child are reactivated due to the events of the second novel. Their goal is too get her locked up again and are working to have her charged with two murders along with the attempted murder of her father, that Russian gangster.

The only one who believes she’s innocent of everything is faithful Millennium publisher Mikael Blomkvist, who now must risk his life and those who surround him, to prove to the courts that Lisbeth Salander maybe antisocial, violent and stubborn, but she does have a moral code. And that her civil rights were violated and someone needs to pay for that.

The novel works in Cold War conspiracies and along with what was probably Larsson’s life work: some men’s hatred of women, and the threat to Swedish democracy posed by right-wing elements in the security service. Through Salander -whom Larsson said is a twisted version of the popular Swedish children’s heroine, Pippi Longstocking - the author gives voice to those who would do anything and everything to degrade women. Some have accused Larsson of being a misogynist, by creating such female character as Lisbeth -who seems to be bisexual, who gets her ass kicked from time-to-time, without being able to do anything about her victimization and other such things. However, I think that was his point.

The same, I guess, can be said about the subplot in this book dealing with Millennium’s Editor-in Chief, Erika Berger. She takes a new job as editor of a major newspaper and butts heads with the male dominated editorial staff and quickly acquires a stalker who begins sending her notes calling her a “whore.” It has no bearing on the main story, and really seems to be there to show the female readers of his books that he is aware of all those oppressed women in the work place. Norma Rae he might not be, but he understands their issues.

Larsson ties up most of the storylines begun in the first two books, and yet, if I’m not mistaken, there was a hint at where the series would have probably went next -the search for Lisbeth’s twin sister -rumors fueled by Larsson’s long-time girlfriend suggest a fourth book was near completion when the author died in 2004. If there is no more, the trilogy ends with no major plots left unsolved.

In the end, the phenomena that is Stieg Larsson and his bestselling Millennium series can overcome certain aspects of books -the lurid tales of dirty old men who hate women and will do anything -including murder - to keep them down. They are intelligent, well paced thrillers that will make you want to tell your friends and family to read these books.

James Patterson only wishes he could write this good.

Books: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson (2009)

The Girl Who Played With Fire picks up almost two years after the events of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and we find Lisbeth Salander -who was more of a secondary character in the first book - becoming central to the complex plot of the second. Now flush with money she stole, Lisbeth has started to change her life. But when she returns home, she finds -as many do - that it's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.

As it happens, Mikael Blomkvist and his magazine Millennium have hired a couple who are researching the sex trade in Sweden. When the two are murdered, it appears Lisbeth Salander is connected to them -her fingerprints are on the gun that killed them. She is also wanted for the murder of the man who was responsible for her, Nils Bjurman. Her guardian raped her in the first book, only to be punished by Salander herself - she gave him a humiliating, homemade tattoo. Since then, Bjurman has been plotting revenge. Not as smart as Lisbeth, but very clever, Bjurman is planning to have her taken out by a hitman -which leads to his death.

Blomkvist is convinced she is innocent, despite the fact that he has not seen her since the events of the first book. Slowly, he begins his own investigation as to why the couple was murdered, supplying information to Lisbeth through his computer -she being the expert hacker, they begin a slow reconciliation.

As the plot unwinds, the back story of Salander is revealed.

This second novel relies a lot on coincidence, but Larsson has created real characters that are complex, believable and appealing, so you can forgive him for that. Lisbeth Salander maybe a bit cartoonish - even actress Noomi Rapace who played Salander in the three Swedish movies based on this series told Buzzine “it’s hard to believe that she can do all of these things, especially since she’s small, anorexic, only eats junk food and smokes all the time, yet Lisbeth can fight ten guys and win." - but you have to like her, even when she makes poor decisions.

The sad aspect maybe is that Stieg Larsson never lived to see how popular these thrillers would become all over the world, and not just his own country of Sweden. His death at age 50 in 2004 has left the world wondering what he could have really done, yet his gift to the world may be these three thrillers (The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is next). Recent articles seem to indicate a fourth novel was nearly completed when he died, with a potential fifth and sixth volume to come. I wonder if they’ll ever see the light of day.

Books: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

There is a lot of good stuff (and bad) in Swedish authors Stieg Larsson’s little mystery, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

The novel is about a disgraced journalist named Mikael Blomqvist. He is hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet. Henrik suspects that someone in his family, who are a powerful, rich and dysfunctional, murdered Harriet over forty years ago. But soon Mikael realizes that Harriet’s disappearance is not a single event, but rather linked to series of gruesome murders in the past. Late into his investigation, he crosses paths with Lisbeth Salander, a young computer hacker, an asocial punk and most importantly, a young woman driven by her vindictiveness. Together they form an unlikely couple as they dive deeper into the violent past of the secretive Vanger family.

The novel, while not complex (unless you try to keep track of all the various Vanger family members), is a well paced thriller with an interesting main character and odd ball, asperger syndrome type girl. Then again, there is the more than obvious fact that the late author sort of makes Swedish men -mostly 60 and over - out to be misogynist assholes.

The novel does take a long time to set up the meeting of Lisbeth and Mikael, and you get a great look in Swedish economics and libel cases. I found that part interesting, but most of its dropped in the middle for the “locked room mystery” that Mikael is trying to solve. Only the last part is disappointing, as the novel evolves into a boring account of Blomkvist’s effort to take down the executive who originally won the libel lawsuit mentioned at the start of the novel. The story of his revenge is dull and completely implausible, relying heavily on lazy e-mail exchanges between characters.

Still, this won’t stop me from reading the second novel in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire.