MacLehose Press (Imprint of Quercus), 2009. Translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland. ISBN 9781847245571, 569 pages
I may be the last hard core crime fiction enthusiast to read The Girl Who Played With Fire (THWPWF) so I am not planning a detailed review and analysis. See below for resources. Instead, I will provide a few notes that occurred to me as I read. There may be spoilers ahead, be warned.
- I liked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, detailed family histories and all, but enjoyed TGWPWF more because it has the police procedural element.
- Speaking of procedures, why didn't the police discover that Bjurman had a cabin? Surely they would have dug into his financials.
- Also liked getting the back-story on Salander. Pretty horrible. I wasn't expecting the biggest revelation about her background.
- What else besides Asperger's affects Salander's behavior?
- I wonder if Larsson read Helen Tursten's Detective Inspector Huss? I was struck by the similarities between the sexist detective Jonny Blom in ...Huss and the rabidly sexist Hans Faste in TGWPWF. Jonny gets slapped by female detective Birgitta Moberg and Hans by female detective Sonja Modig.
- I really want to read the third book, The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. I want Salander to find peace, be friends with Blomkvist again, and take down the remaining people who did her wrong. Quercus will be getting more money from me this Fall.
- I liked to references to Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking which I got from the library so I can understand about Pippi and Kalli.
- Salander hitting upon the solution to Fermat's Last Theorem while sneaking though the woods was a bit much, still fun though.
Maxine considerately collected links about this book including one to her own review here PETRONA: That girl who played with fire
And there are also these sites that have extensive reviews. If I forgot anyone, let me know.
International Crime Noir: Comments on The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson
Material Witness: REVIEW: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
It's Criminal: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Great post, Mack. I had quite a few questions when I read this book, about the holes and coincidences, but I didn't write them all down (as I got too carried away by the story!) so they are lost - unless I re-read it.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned on FriendFeed that I recently read all of Karin Altvegen's books (that are translated/available), and very much enjoyed them. The main character of Missing has a lot in common with Lisbeth, so given your comments in your post about similarities, you might be interested to read that? It is superb.