Review of 'The Girl Who Played with Fire'

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
2nd book in the 'Millennium' series

The second novel in the popular Millennium series follows the later experiences of the hacker-extraordinaire Lisbeth Salander and her friend Mikael Blomkvist, the investigative reporter now exhonerated of any of the wrong-doing from the fist novel. Lisbeth has found herself caught up in the murder of her guardian and two journalists that were working with Mikael's monthly magazine Millenium to release an expos? on sex trafficing. Lisbeth's unusual lifestyle and attitude does her no favours - As she goes into hiding the media begin to disect her life and find her easily guilty of the murders. It is only as the novel progresses that the police investigating the murders begin to suspect this young emotionally disturbed woman may not be how they think she is…

The writing is once again very good indeed if not a bit hard to follow with the Swedish names used throughout. I did find that keeping some of the characters straight was sometimes quite difficult as there are quite a number of them (particularly the team of police assigned to investigate the murders). The prose is wonderfully minimal in the actions scenes and wonderfully descriptive in the emotive ones. The political intrigue and multiple levels of storyline, of course, is very much present here.

The middle of the novel tended to drag for me as things do not really appear to go anywhere. The finale is suitably exciting but do be warned not to expect complete closure on the story as there is a final (third) novel that picks up very shortly after the events of this.

If you were a fan of the first book, you pretty much have to read this one. More of the same…bring on the third!

Rating: “It is OK but I have some issues”

Review Date: 2011-03-12


Genre: Crime/Mystery

Publisher: Quercus

Publication Date: 2009


Other reviewed books in the 'Millennium' series:

Other reviewed books by Stieg Larsson: