Book Review: The Girl ...

... with the Dragon Tattoo
... who Played with Fire
... who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

These books are known as the Millennium Trilogy. They are by a Swedish writer, Stieg Larsson. And there won't be any more of them because the author died suddenly a short time after delivering the manuscripts to his publisher.

We should note a couple of things about Larsson. He was an investigative journalist, and a publisher of a magazine. So it is reasonable to assume that one of his principal characters is based a lot on himself.

Mikael Blomqvist is top reporter and publisher of 'Millennium' magazine in the trilogy. And the three books are essentially about his adventures with The Girl, Lisbeth Salander. Actually, Lisbeth is the main protagonist, a strange, fractured, and gifted young woman whose back story only completes itself at the end of the third book.

I don't want to give anything away about any of the three plots. Let's just put into context how I got to read them.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was part of a Christmas present package, which I didn't get to read until February. In English it is a translation, of course, and in some ways this might be part of the reason that I found it initially slow and somewhat stilted. Or maybe that's the way it is in the original Swedish. Larsson's style is to do a lot of detailed background, perhaps more than necessary.

But it was also one of those books which I couldn't put down. I read it over a weekend, dropping all the other things I should have been doing to pick it up whenever I could.

It was partly the yarn, a search for a killer in a family history which Blomqvist was asked to undertake as a journalist. And partly the extraordinary character of Lisbeth Salander, an intensely private person to whose life only the reader is allowed access.

The 'Dragon Tattoo' book comes to a satisfying end. And there never needed to be a sequel, except that Larsson himself was obviously intrigued with his main character and the interactions of the others with her. That he wrote all three books on the trot before bringing them to his publisher reflects that he too knew there was more to find out.

Since I'm a regular, and appreciative user of Kilcullen Community Library, I asked Julie to see if she could get me the second book of the trio. Given the popularity of 'Dragon' and the fact that it has now also been released as a movie, the others were in some demand. But a couple of weeks ago it arrived and I picked it up. I had to finish something else before getting into it, and read two thirds of it last weekend and finished it mid-week. Which indicates that it also was addictive. Without detailing the story, we were moving on in the past and present of Lisbeth Salander, who herself had found a need to face demons from her origins. Mikael Blomqvist and other familiars figured also in the story, in major ways but at a distance from Lisbeth, because that was how she wanted it. Though in fact, and despite her best efforts, they were working on her behalf.

As I've said, it came to an abrupt and unsatisfactory ending. But the reason for this came clear when I left back the book last Friday, and Julie told me she had got in the third one for me. I got stuck into it yesterday morning, and finished it in the glorious sunshine of this afternoon.

In fact, 'Hornet's Nest' takes up seamlessly from the 'Fire' book, and it is clear that they were really written as one. Whether it was the publisher's decision to divide it, or Larsson had already done that, I don't know. But the two need to be read in sequence, and together.

They are all three powerful books. The grounding of the stories, and of the author, in journalism would appeal to me anyhow. Which is maybe why the extensive detail didn't bother me as much as I know it has readers without my background.

As a 'police procedural' genre it shows that, despite the funny names, policing is pretty similar all over the world.

As a series of books with twists and turns of plot, against backgrounds of business and political intrigues, they are collectively, and individually, engrossing. They also provide a window into the quite complex legalities of Swedish life and social regulation.

I put the last book down this afternoon quite satisfied. I have to be, since Larsson is gone and we'll not have any further insights into the life of The Girl.

I kind of feel, though, that the author was happy enough that, for her, justice had at last been truly done.

Right, I've told you nothing, really. Except, it you like a good yarn that also leaves you wondering a little, this trilogy is well worth spending good reading time on.

Brian Byrne.