The Girl Who Played with Fire

The second book in Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy continues the story of journalist/editor Michael Blomkvist and hacker/investigator Lisbeth Salander. As the title suggests, this is a tale of consequences, and how they play out in a very terrible way for Lisbeth.

It's remarkable how much Larsson can make us care about his fictional characters, especially Lisbeth, who, as a waif on the periphery of society, seems to embody so many contrary traits, and yet carries them in such a way that she seems absolutely authentic.

The plot rolls along in several threads, the mystery being how the various threads will tie together. The suspense is masterful, not only because the plotting is deft, but because the scenes plotted are scenes which pull us deep into the psychology of the very human characters. My interest in the solution of the mystery was not merely intellectual, but deeply emotional. Hence my stress when I discovered the book doesn't end, so much as it gets interrupted by the back cover. Sure the answers to the mystery have been discovered but...what happens to these people?

I expect if I had The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest in my possession when I finished this book I would have been in for a long night.