Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by Steig Larsson

I had put off reading this final book in the Larsson Millennium trilogy, knowing it would be the end of reading something special - that there wouldn't ever quite be another set of books like this.  On my recent trip to Puerto Rico, however, curiosity won out and I devoured it in just a few days.

This book continues to follow heroine Lisbeth Salander, her allies (like Mikael Blomkvist and the Millennium Magazine staff) and her enemies (Zalachenko, Niederman, and Teleborian, to name a few).  Details around secret government divisions are discovered, further making this a novel with a major political axe to grind.  More issues arise around freedom of press, as Millennium and other papers play a strong part in the storyline. Ultimately many loose ends are tied up, and I'd say justice is served.

This may be my favorite of the three books, just because it is very clever. Many of the characters are involved in plots to do all sorts of things, and it was fun to be a part of it unfolding as the reader.  The new characters that were introduced were well-crafted, and seeing the ones that I knew already was like reuniting with old friends.

Rumor has it that Larsson's partner has a manuscript for a fourth book and that Larsson may have planned on as many as 10 books in the series.  Wow.  Hopefully one day the estate will work out its problems and continue publishing his ideas.

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