The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

I've got to give this book credit. I abandoned it about three weeks ago when I was less than halfway finished with it in order to begin the 800-page epic A Game of Thrones. I forced myself to finish reading this book before beginning the second Song of Ice and Fire book, but I had lost track of the narrative and was very tempted to just skim my way through to the ending. But the book did not allow me to do that, simply by being an engrossing and interesting read. Kudos to Stieg Larsson.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third and final book in the late Larsson's Millennium trilogy. Its title doesn't make much literal sense, but neither does the original Swedish one, which translates to The Castle of Air That Was Blown Up. Unlike the way the first book concluded and the second book began a whole new series of investigations and adventures, this third book begins exactly where the second one had ended on quite a cliffhanger. A number of plots emerge and get resolved, but the principle arc in this third and final book is the trial of Lisbeth Salander (the titular girl with a dragon tattoo who played with fire and "kicked the hornet's nest," whatever that may mean). The book concludes with far more closure and resolution than remaining questions, and as such, it makes for a great final book in the series. Ironically though, the book wasn't supposed to be the last one in the Millennium series at all. Stieg Larsson died unexpectedly in 2004 and his three famous books were discovered on his laptop as finished manuscripts. A fourth manuscript involving the same characters as the other three was three quarters finished, and an outline for a fifth book was discovered as well. It became clear through his notes that Larsson had actually planned on making ten different books in this series. In that respect, he clearly intended to write them in a rather episodic fashion, introducing new threats and plots and challenges in each book, but resolving them within a novel or two as he'd done so far. It's too bad we'll never get to see where all of this was ultimately heading, but at the same time I doubt this little trilogy would have risen to international prominence had it extended to be five, eight, or ten books.There is, after all, that law of diminishing returns. We may in fact someday see that fourth novel, either published unfinished as it was or brought to completion by Larsson's girlfriend.

I'd struggled a bit after reading the first two books when it came to deciding if they had lived up to the hype. I think at this point, having completed all three, I can safely say that I understand just what the books were really about and what made them pretty unique. They weren't just murder mysteries, nor were they courtroom dramas or spy thrillers. They were a well-made mix of all of those things with dashes of computer hacking and anti-misogyny thrown in there. They provided the Western canon with a totally unique and unforgettable character in Lisbeth Salander, and they were critical of several flaws in the Swedish legal and judicial system. It still doesn't make a ton of sense to me that these three books became the most popular reads in the world a couple of years ago, but then, a lot of trends don't make much sense to me. The series was a good one, well-written throughout, and I'm definitely glad I read these three books. I think that the first one was my favorite and that this third one was my second-favorite. This isn't to say that I disliked the second one, but it's interesting that the two people I'd spoken to before reading the series both said they liked the second one best and the first one least. Clearly there's no consensus opinion, which only suggests that the different books have different strengths. I look forward to the eventual release of the final two English language movies.