Book Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest By Stieg Larsson

Book Review by Cos Barnes

I did not read the first book of Steig Larsson’s internationally best-selling trilogy, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I saw the movie which I verbally described as gory and graphic. I was totally unprepared for the boldness and rapid pace of this book in which the heroine  – or would you call Lisbeth Salander a heroine? – is described with the adjective, elfin  and compared to one of my all-time favorites, Audrey Hepburn. Still I was captivated by her skill as a computer hacker and by her uncanny ability to survive what life had thrown at her. I also respected the ideals of journalist Mikael Bloomkvist who is clever and moral and determined to do what is  the duty of the journalist.

Later in the summer I was visiting in Florida with my daughter and her grown children and I practically arm-wrestled my grandson to get his copy of the second book, “The Girl Who Played with Fire.” I honestly could not put it down, so engrossed did I become in  the background of this young woman and the ordeals she had to endure.

A pixie with unimaginable strength and courage, she fights a father who is a former Soviet spy, a brother who is immune to pain and conscience while trying to look after a mother whose life has been wrecked by the father. She is unbelievable in her depth.

“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” the third in the trilogy – and the last due to the untimely death of the author – finds Lisbeth hovering between life and death after being shot by her father and buried alive by the brother. She was rescued by Bloomkvist but awaits trial for three murders in a Swedish hospital where her incredible brain allows her to orchestrate the action, which involves plots and counter plots, from a  Palm computer.

The most difficult part of reading this trilogy is trying to keep straight the multitude of foreign names, the complications and connections to the plot of all the name bearers and their overall input to the story.

I have had several people say they would like the trilogy in their library. It would be a nice Christmas gift.