jmatsu's Full Review: Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson is the exciting sequel to the best-selling The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
It is the second book in a three-part series. The series was initially written as one book, but the publisher had the author break it into three separate books. The entire series has been published overseas in other languages, but the American publisher has decided to wait a year between the publication of each part (so if you like this book, be prepared to wait till next summer for the final installment in the series).
The first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, centers around Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced investigative journalist who goes to a remote Swedish town to investigate the disappearance of a young woman and ends up uncovering a serial killer. He's aided in his efforts by the title character, an amazing young woman named Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth's tattoos and piercings reflect her anti-establishment attitude, but those surface features don't begin to describe the emotionally complex person within. Lisbeth is damaged and disassociative. She has a pathological distrust of authority, and a disregard for the law that's oddly combined with an uncompromising moral center. Labelled mentally retarded and socially dysfunctional by a system that would like to have her institutionalized, Lisbeth is the poster child for how bad social services can be. The reality is that she is probably a genius, exceptionally resilient and quite capable of functioning on her own. She has a talent for research, aided by the fact that (in the context of the book) she is probably the world's greatest hacker.
In this second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire, many of the characters from the first book return, but this time the book is centered around Lisbeth. The reader gets to learn a lot more about her--all the secrets from her childhood, family and time in social services, along with more of her thoughts from her present. Lisbeth is a mix of toughness and vulnerability. She's an outsider with a desire to fit in and connect with other people, but is often at a loss as how to go about it. A change in circumstance has given her the means to improve her situation and find a better place to live. She does so, but with mixed results. Her improved situation somehow only underscores her loneliness, isolation and inability to function like other people.
This book is nicely paced. At first it covers Lisbeth adjusting to her new life. Someone setting up house might not seem too fascinating, but she had been such an enigma in the first book and has such a unique way of doing things that I enjoyed reading about her efforts to establish her new life. The author picks up the pace by adding tension as Lisbeth's enemies start to move against her. The pace really picks up as Lisbeth is accused of a heinous crime. At first it seems obvious that she couldn't have done it, but then I found myself wondering if she might be guilty of at least part of what she was accused of. The book has several mysteries--who committed the murders and why, how is everything connected and why do the bad guys want to kill Lisbeth? By the time I got to the last third of the book I couldn't put it down.
(btw: I'm trying really hard to talk about both books without ruining the story for anyone who hasn't read them.)
General Thoughts
My husband and I both enjoyed this book. It was fascinating to find out more about Lisbeth. The plot had a lot of surprises. We liked this sequel a lot better than the first book in the series, though you really should read the other book before reading this one. If you hadn't read the first book there are things in this one that you wouldn't fully understand. And if you read the first book second, then a lot of the suspense would be ruined.
These books were the first Swedish books I'd ever read. I found most of the characters likeable and I thought the books provided an interesting glimpse into Swedish culture. Although I found bits of humor in the book, it's not a happy, light-hearted mystery. Some of the things described are quite terrible. The first book is especially dark with some brutal characters and horrific crimes, but fortunately the author doesn't dwell on them in much detail.
The writing is direct (not flowery or poetic), focussing on moving the plot along. Basically a she thought this or did this or then this happened. Since the plot with all it's twists and surprises is the most important thing, this was not a problem for me and I feel comfortable recommending the book to others.
Mystery & Detective - General Fiction - The electrifying follow-up to the phenomenal best seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ("An intelligent, ing...More at Barnes and Noble
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