books 2011 // # 05 - The Girl Who Played with Fire by by Stieg Larsson
Title: The Girl Who Played with Fire by by Stieg Larsson [Stockholm 2006]
Series: Millennium trilogy book #02.
Genre: Crime / mystery novel.
Length: 751 pages.
Summary: Part blistering espionage thriller, part riveting police procedural, and part piercing exposeé on social injustice, The Girl Who Played with Fire is a masterful, endlessly satisfying novel. Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past. [Source].
Review in 5 words or less: Complex heroine | Captivating | Very clever plot | Outstanding characterization | Great pacing |
Personal Rating: ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ of 5.
Review:
After reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo about a year ago, it was once again time to see how Lisbeth Salander is doing. Barely a few pages into the sequel it already becomes apparent that it's a very good thing I read the previous book, since The Girl Who Played with Fire relies heavily on relationships and storylines introduced in the first book of the Millennium series. Next to that it also becomes evident that Larsson really enjoyed writing about Lisbeth - something I approve whole-heartedly of, because he does it wonderfully.
In my opinion The Girl Who Played with Fire is even better than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In contrast to the latter, there wasn't such a long exposition anymore and both the characterization and the pacing have improved drastically, this time revolving all around the question of "Who is Lisbeth Salander?". Until the reader gets the surprising answer to that, the story goes through unexpected twists and turns, some solid action, amazing characterization and a very clever plot. My personal favorites were the revelations about Lisbeth probably suffering form a mild form of Aspenberger's Syndrome (Remember? Like the boy in Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) - something I suspected back when I read the first book. Next to that the title, The Girl Who Played with Fire, takes on a multi-layered meaning once it becomes apparent that Lisbeth tried to burn Zalatschenko to death as a young teenager and manages to play with fire metaphorically (and sometimes literally) to the present day. A wonderful book!
Links: official website, @ wikipedia
Other books I've read by this author: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005).