Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

The story of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander continues a year after the end of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. They are separated, with Blomkvist trying to figure out where she is. After Lisbeth returns to Sweden, three people are murdered and the police are convinced she's guilty. Blomkvist is just as certain that she isn't. As he investigated, he learns more about the past of this complicated woman.

Another exciting tale that had me running for the bookstore to pick up the third, and final, book in the series before I finished this one. The stakes are even higher in this one, especially for Lisbeth. I won't go into more detail so as not to spoil anything.

There's still a lot of telling, but it's such a big story, that's kind of a blessing. The beginning of the book also has a lot of dialogue where two characters are telling each other things they both know just to tell us. Easily solved with a character who doesn't know.

Small quibbles aside, this book has one of my favorite lines in the series so far. We are learning that Salander has a twin sister who is quite different from her. Larsson writes, "Lisbeth was first. Camilla was beautiful." Six words that sum up what would have taken a lesser writer pages to get across.

So sad that Stieg Larsson died so young. Imagine how many other wonderful stories he could have spun for us.

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