The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

by Stieg Larsson

This is the third and last book in the Millennium trilogy. Note that this summary may contain spoilers if you have not read the first 2 books (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire) It follows on from where book 2 ended. Lisbeth Salander had just had a confrontation with Zalachenko and is badly injured and so too Zalanchenko. They are both sent to hospital and awaiting recovery upon which they would be awaiting trial. In that confrontation, Niederman had managed to escape and in at that moment still at large. Whilst this is going on, there are powers working deep within the crevices of the Secutiry Police, known as The Section, that look to undermine Lisbeth and would see her again locked up in a psychiatric ward. In all this, Mikael Blomkvist and a barrage of people are trying to build a case to see that The Section's plan does not come to fruition. The result is about 750 pages of nonstop action and political espionage.

I started reading this book 4 days back and could not stop. The writing is realistic to the point that at one point or another one wonder if one is really reading piece of fiction. The plots is so disjointed at times that you really do wonder if these events actually occurred. This halting plot however does not take away the pace of the story, it is well-paced for such a tome of a book. To the contrary, it makes you wonder what is at the next turn as things are just so unexpected. Things however do tone down approaching the last quarter of the book, and I felt it went slightly anti climactic. So again, it just felt so much like actual occurrences.

Adding to the realism is that the characters though numerous, are very believable and moreover one can relate to them and their situations. My favourite character has to be Lisbeth Salander because she is one of the most unique female protagonist I have come across. She is a recluse, uncommunicative but extremely resourceful. The characters in this book are quite multi-dimensional and comple, so not at all cliche.

Some minor criticisms is that as a whole, books I seem to be quite disjointed from II and III in that I could have sat alone. But this was Stieg's first major work of fiction so I guess it was reasonable for the first book to be more self encapsulated, for fear that he was ever allowed to publish the first one. But I would also have liked books II and III to be more self encapsulated whilst maintaining intricate interweaving with revelations from books I and II. But all this is perhaps is just nit picking in an absolutely wonderful trilogy that I would probably re read again all three together.

What a great loss to the literary world it is that Stieg Larrson has passed on. RIP.