The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium Trilogy, Book 2): Book 2 of the Millennium Trilogy (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) [Kindle Edition]

"Godly people find life; evil people find death." -- Proverbs 11:19

If you enjoyed Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you're in for a treat: This is Lisbeth's story, explaining how such a brilliant woman came to be a ward of the state, taken "care of" by a pervert lawyer. What's more, she's on the run . . . first from her disappointment in loving Mikael Blomkvist, and later from the authorities who rely on circumstantial evidence to decide that she's a murderer. With all of Sweden after her, can Lisbeth outwit her foes?

The story is very much a David and Goliath conflict: Tiny Lisbeth is pitted against rich, powerful, and evil enemies who wish her the very worst they can wish. In developing that theme, Stieg Larsson raises fascinating fundamental questions about duality in the reader's mind such as when strength is weakness and weakness is strength, when doing good leads to evil and when doing evil leads to doing good, when friendship is more important than love and love leads to friendship, what the basis for personal morality should be and when public morality is immoral, and how the family bonds can be horrible while friendship bonds can be redeeming. You'll walk away from this book with a more objective view of the next news story you read about a crime and its punishment.

Stieg Larsson makes quite a bit of Lisbeth's extraordinary intellect. When she's running circles around conventional people, you'll feel like you are reading all about Robin Hood again. Those sections provide something of a letdown however for readers when they have to go back to following the conventional people as they bumble around. I found myself impatient for the next dose of Lisbeth several times in the book's middle.

As in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this book pulls off the respectable front of the rich and powerful to reveal the evil underneath, the sick predators who will stop at nothing to satisfy their every whim. Be ready to be dragged through the mud of gross human depravity. Like a modern-day Joan of Arc, Lisbeth doesn't let the muck stick to her as she slogs through it.

Enjoy!!!!!!

"The Girl who Played with Fire" is the second book in the Millennium Trilogy by author Stieg Larsson. The book is 724 pages in length. Although not a direct continuation of book I, there are obvious connecting references.

*SPOILER*

A line from page 667 of this book sums up the theme for this book perfectly, I quote...

"Salander was a woman who hated men who hate women."

In this book we are reacquainted again with journalist Mikael Blomkvist and computer-hacker extraordinaire, Lisbeth Salander. Journalist friends of Blomkvist have been murdered and the suddenly missing Salander is the main suspect. A wild and expansive police hunt is begun in order to bring the 'fugitive' to justice.

*END SPOILER*

Comment:

The book reads like a summertime bestseller meant to be consumed at the beach while the kids are off making sand-castles. Although a fast and easy read, it is not particularly well written and I don't feel that this is something entirely related to the book being translated from Swedish to English. There is a degree of shock, sex, violence and doing things to inexplicably put oneself in harms way that smacks of amateurish bestseller-ism.

The police force seems at least as interested in its own sense of hierarchy as it is in solving the murder. Talk about a dysfunctional group with their own agendas! Clues are not followed up on correctly...some problems are solved (or not) by random luck or convenience.

Many characters in the novel missed important communications by leaving their cell phones turned off or lost contact because of low batteries. Just hard to believe in a murder investigation that has riveted the country.

And finally, the coffee reference (in my title)...don't think I've ever seen so many references to coffee either being made, brewed, sipped, drunk or refused in one book. And of course, what's a cup of coffee without sandwiches, they simply go together...over and over and over. No wonder the different groups in this book were incompetent...they were on a continual caffeine buzz.

Conclusion:

The actual story. i.e. the plot, was full of promise and hope...this could have been a great detective/murder novel. But the writing was poor and the plot from a believably point of view, was a real stretch, resulting in a over-rated best-seller. 2 Stars.

Coffee anyone...anyone?

Ray Nicholson

P.S.
I would be greatly indebted if someone could explain to me, the reason for the inclusion of mathematical references and formulas in the introduction areas of each major section of this book.

Lisbeth Salander is one of the most original and intriguing characters to appear in modern literature for a very long time. When was the last time you came across a featherweight female boxer with more than a touch of Asperger's syndrome; with strong kung-fu when it comes to computer hacking skills and an unstoppable fighting spirit when it comes to physical blows; with a photographic memory and an uncanny ability to grasp mathematics; a master of social engineering and a ghost of disguises; a formidable chess player and an enemy few people could afford to make?
It is Pipi Longstockings with breast implants, real guns and a killer PowerBook!

Whereas the first installment of the MILLENNIUM Trilogy was more on publisher Mikael Blomkvist and his quest to solve a decades old locked-room/island mystery, this second book gives us a ample view on Lisbeth's history as she straggles to clear her name of a triple murder. She had both motive and opportunity and all physical evidence points to her. Was she desperate enough to actually have done it? What could possibly push her over the edge?

Women trafficking, rogue agents of the Soviet GRU and the Swedish Sapo trying to keep their crimes in the shadows, biker gangs and obscure members of Lisbeth's family all interweave in a very absorbing story that kept me turning pages into the morning hours.
And amongst the fog of all this war, Lisbeth comes up with Fermat's alleged elegant solution to his Last Theorem on her own (no, unfortunately the solution is not described in detail).

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!