Book Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played with Fire
Millennium #2
Author: Stieg Larsson
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Published: 2006
Review Source: Purchased
Available: Amazon

Summary: (from goodreads) Part blistering espionage thriller, part riveting police procedural, and part piercing exposé on social injustice, The Girl Who Played with Fire is a masterful, endlessly satisfying novel.

 
Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.

From the Paperback edition.

2nd book of the Millennium Trilogy

Even as much as I liked the first book, I loved this one even more. This second installment is mostly dealing with Lisbeth Salander character and her history. At the beginning of the book , there is recount of her adventures in traveling where she tries to erase newly alien feelings that she has for Mikael. Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist that she did some of her unique research in the previous book to help solve a crime and literally saved his life. Once she returns, she is in a mission to help organize her life and buys a new apartment away from all that is known to ensure her privacy. After she settles in her new life, she does her search in all the computers she has hacked into to find out what has been going on. In Michael’s computer she find articles and research for a new book that brings unexpected memories and surprises. The couple that had been the authors of the research and articles are found killed as well as her appointed guardian, and she finds herself the center of the police manhunt and thought to be the killer. Only those that are considered close to her step up the plate and defend the innocence of Salander, they use their own resources to initiate and independent investigation in hopes to prove it. During the investigation, we learn a lot of facts and history where we are introduced to the reasons why she is the peculiar character that she is.

There is no shortage of mystery, action packed drama and electrifying adventure throughout the whole story. There is excitement in every page you turn to end in an astonishing and heart wrenching climax. There are some lose ends that are probably door openers for the 3rd and final installment. I can’t release the hold the story has on me, so my to be read pile has gone to standby mode, and I ‘m going straight to the 3rd book.