The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. By Steig Larsson

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

Steig Larsson

Translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland

Machlehose Press, London. 2007

A nice finale to the series. The tale of Lisbeth Salander comes to an end, though, probably, if Larsson had not died, he would have written several encores. There are interesting underdeveloped aspects to her character, and the latter books could have explored them. Even now, there may be someone writing the 'official' sequels. (I see on the Internet, that Larsson had originally planned ten books and had written the first three, and parts of the fourth before he died. His 'life companion' is said to be finishing the fourth). Anyway back to the the third book in the series. Lisbeth is most of the time in hospital, some time in prison, and only at the end she's free and sees some action. Otherwise its mostly Blomkvist, Berger (Erika Berger is the editor of Millennium magazine, and therefore Bolmkvist's boss, also his close friend and very occasional lover, plays a major role in all three books) and a whole host of new characters, mainly policemen and women (especially women!) who act against each other. Blomkvist and the good guys in the police get together to destroy the bad guys, including several in the police, who are also out to destroy Salander. Lisbeth does some hacking from the hospital, and thus helps the good guys, but anonymously. There is also the unrelated story of Berger and her moves from Millennium magazine to head a newspaper and then back again to Millennium. There is also the again unrelated story of Berger and a stalker. These seem to be added just for the texture, and to soften the character of Lisbeth, who helps Berger in the latter story. Nice books. Nice books, all three of them.