Monday, August 9, 2010

Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest

Stieg Larsson does not let us down in this third installment featuring Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. In fact, he spares us the usual red herrings that characterized the first two books and keeps everything relentlessly focused on the powerful machinations to sweep Zalachenko and his inconvenient daughter under the rug. That's not to say that there aren't subplots a plenty, e.g., Erika Berger's move to head a major newspaper initiates a series of stalker episodes, and Salander's half-brother is also the object of a police manhunt and far from being out of the picture. But the storyline around Erika results in a truce with Salander and makes Berger a much more three dimensional character than previously. Mikael stubbornly and resourcefully continues to probe the extensive and deadly cover-up that now has Lisbeth at its center. With his help, and the help of other allies (Palmgren, Armansky), Salander once again uses her unique talents to topple those who would abuse power at the expense of the seemingly powerless. The lingering question is, what will Salander do with herself when she no longer has to spend all her time fighting to survive...

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