The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson- 3 stars ***
It is completely different to what I normally read, and I practically stumbled across it, as my friend lent me the first one as I had forgotten a book to read whilst on holiday. After devouring that one in less than 2 weeks, it has taken me a further 2 years to actually get round to completing the set.
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest was my least favourite out of the three, but I think that is partially down to my stop-start technique of reading it, as it isn't exactly light subject matter so takes a while to get into, and most of the time I had barely done that before more pressing issues began to call. It is still a tremendous book though, filled with phenomenal characterisation, a very clever plot, and aspects of everything from crime to sex to history contained within it. Steig Larsson has clearly gone all out on his research, as there is not anything that I felt the need to look up or question throughout the whole series of novels, signifying what an incredibly bright man Larsson obviously was.
This is the third book in the Millennium trilogy, the second of which I read whilst in Turkey over the summer (see previous post). It took me absolutely ages to read the final segment, as aside from being over 700 pages long, I have also been insanely busy with work, so find very little time that I can justify spending reading rather than doing something more constructive. However, I have eventually completed it, and have to say that the trilogy as a whole is probably the best I have read (aside from the obvious LOTR).
It is completely different to what I normally read, and I practically stumbled across it, as my friend lent me the first one as I had forgotten a book to read whilst on holiday. After devouring that one in less than 2 weeks, it has taken me a further 2 years to actually get round to completing the set.
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest was my least favourite out of the three, but I think that is partially down to my stop-start technique of reading it, as it isn't exactly light subject matter so takes a while to get into, and most of the time I had barely done that before more pressing issues began to call. It is still a tremendous book though, filled with phenomenal characterisation, a very clever plot, and aspects of everything from crime to sex to history contained within it. Steig Larsson has clearly gone all out on his research, as there is not anything that I felt the need to look up or question throughout the whole series of novels, signifying what an incredibly bright man Larsson obviously was.
This third book, begins with heroine Lisbeth Salander in hospital after being shot and buried by her half-brother Ron Niedermann. Because she is under arrest for the murder of now at least two people, she is in a secure ward under surveillance. Blomkvist asks his sister, who is a women's rights lawyer, to defend Lisbeth. He then also gets to work trying to chase the missing Niedermann, who is the true murderer of the victims Lisbeth has been framed for.
As well as this there are more than a few sub-plots, and it is essentially the book that ties all the loose ends up and ends with heroine Lisbeth Salander being cleared of all charges and reconciling her friendship with Blomkvist. This is after she dismissed him from her life in the second book when she discovered she had romantic feelings towards him. The full synopsis is extremely complicated, and heavily related to the previous books so I don't want to give too much away! It is available here for those interested:
If you have not discovered this fabulous author yet then get to it, you won't be disappointed. The first film of the big-budget trilogy (there is a Swedish version of them also available) is set for Boxing Day release, and stars Daniel Craig and Joely Richardson, so you'll want to be up-to-date.
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