The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

After thoroughly enjoying the first in the Millennium series The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I knew I will be reading the next book pretty soon and so I did! We meet the same characters Lisbeth Salander, the one with the tattoo and who apparently plays with the fire in this book and our hero Mikhael Blomkvist and a bunch of other supporting characters.

This time around, we have Salander in the hotspot - she is accused of triple murders and it is upto her friend Blomkvist to help her out in this difficult decision. The author takes immense pleasure in hanging the sword above Salander's head and letting the readers wonder 'Did she? Didn't she?' A journalist who is writing a book about sex trafficking, his girl friend who is writing a thesis on the same subject, a mysterious incident in Salander's life which she calls "All The Evil" - add all these and you have a page tuner in your hands - literally! Just like the first book, Larsson creates an air of mystery around Salander's so called evil incident and the reader is dying to know what the heck that is. Salander gets a few more layers to her - Larsson beautifully develops her character. Half the world thinks she is a psychopath and is dangerous to the society whereas the other half thinks she is the best thing ever that happened to mankind.

Larsson seems to be obsessed with the physical form of love. While the first book revolved completely around that and violence, Larsson could have easily avoided mentioning these in his second book, still he does. A more-than-necessary importance to lesbians and this really put me off. The author has an interesting plot on hands which will make the book sell like hot cakes, he need not resort to such cheap tactics just to increase the book's sales!

Larsson's writing is nothing great. As it happens with most murder mysteries, the importance is given to the plot, its twists and turns rather than the language and style and this book is no different. And I am totally fine with it. If I want to read good English and beautiful style, I will read some other book. When I read a mystery, I want to be given an interesting plot and so many twists and turns that I feel dizzy and Larsson's books fulfill these criteria. But there is a limit to how much shabby writing one can put up with. Larsson gets so descriptive in every scene (why do I care how many Billy Pan Pizza did Salander buy) that it gets really irritating (are you sure she folded her right leg over her left one and not the other way around? Who cares?). Still, I enjoyed this book just like how I enjoy a Govinda movie any day! You might not recall anything in this book after you close it, but you will enjoy it as long as you read it.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Reading intellectually stimulating books is one thing, but there is nothing like reading a crime thriller. The former is like watching a documentary on Vietnam war. You need to be attentive, lest you miss some minor point. The latter, on the other hand, is like watching a thriller movie in which it is okay if you missed the initial few scenes because the most important thing is the climax fight or the chase. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a crime thriller but you would not want to miss any part of the book because there is not a single, dull moment in the book.

This book was originally written in Swedish and was named 'Män som hatar kvinnor', literal translation means 'Men who hate women'. What a lame title! Thank Heavens someone had the brains to change the title of the English version, otherwise I would definitely not have picked this book to read. This book is part of a trilogy called Millennium trilogy. The author had an unexpected death just before his work was published. His books went on to become best-sellers and he did not live to see it!

The first book in the trilogy is about Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo, who is a freak in the social world. She keeps to herself and behaves in a way for the others to think she is mentally unwell. What the world does not know is that she is an investigator and a hacker par excellence. Mikhael Blomkvist loses his money and credibility in a libel case. When he decides to take a break from his role as publisher of the magazine, he gets hired for an unexpected but interesting task by Henrik Vanger. His assignment is to crack the murder mystery of Vanger's niece Harriet which occurred some forty years back. Harriet disappears one fine day and nobody has any trace of her after that day. Vanger is sure someone killed her and to mock him, the murderer sends him a birthday gift every year. Vanger's only aim in life is to track the murderer and make him pay for it. The book is about how Mikhael, along with Lisbeth, solves this mystery. The plot is set in a fictional place in Sweden.

The book has a very promising start. With the first word, you are bang in the middle of all the action. The plot is interesting, to say the least. The author builds up an air of mystery around Harriet's disappearance and the reader so badly wants to know what on earth really happened to that girl. The main characters are believable, the most mysterious and interesting being Lisbeth. She comes across as innocent, yet shrewd. Her thoughts about how the world functions and her way of getting things she wants and how relationships work makes a very good read. You can't help but want to reach out and give her a hug. Blomkvist, according to me, comes across as plain. The protagonist of murder mysteries is usually a handsome hunk, who every living woman finds attractive and falls for, but not Blomkvist, atleast I didn't fall for him.

Though the book is quite big, it moves really fast. The story is quick paced and the eagerness to solve the mystery will make you finish the book in one sitting. The plot, the way the mystery is solved and the twists involved are all great, but the reason for the crime is lame. Somehow, in the end when the mystery is solved, you will ask yourself 'What the heck!'. Larsson has a great story to tell but he should have made his murderer more believable. The motive is not strong enough. Nevertheless, a great book and a perfect one to pick up when you are done with something heavy and need a filler.