With warm, lazy days and significantly less required reading, summer is the perfect time to start reading an award-winning book series. The English translation of the final chapter of Swedish journalist Steig Larsson’s Millennium series, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” published in America in May, could not have come at a better time for voracious readers who fly through witty material.
For those who have opened the first volume in the trilogy, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” it comes as no surprise that Larsson’s plots are truly original, yet vividly realistic. His expert characterization has propelled all three novels into at least the top five of the New York Times Best Seller List.
The pacing of each of Larsson’s novels oscillates between break-neck speed in action-packed sequences and slower anecdotes about the secondary characters’ pasts. At times, the onslaught of minute details can momentarily seem like they are just adding length to the book, but Larsson has a gift for tying every detail into the plot in plausible and surprising ways.
The real gem of the books is the heroine, Lisbeth Salander, who is simultaneously unreasonable, tight-lipped, paranoid, Mensa genius and strangely loveable to audiences who eventually understand her atypical and steadfast morality. Add in the fact that this tattooed, pierced and rivet wearing young woman is a world-class computer hacker with a long history of swift violence and a consistent refusal to respond to psychiatrists about her taciturn, anti-social ways and you have an enigmatic and potentially explosive character, who even landed on “The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years” list, according to Entertainment Weekly.
The first thrilling read also introduces Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced journalist and publisher of Millennium Magazine, who bit off more than he could chew in his attempts to take down a corrupt mogul. Blomkvist crosses paths with Salander when he employs her for her unparalleled sleuthing skills while he is unraveling a 40-year-old mystery that takes some dark and unexpected twists and turns.
At the start of the second novel, “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” it seems absolutely unrealistic that the two lead characters will ever have another reason to interact after (*spoiler alert*) Salander temporarily breaks off their friendship at the close of the first novel. But when one of Millennium’s writers and his girlfriend, who are both writing explosive exposes on the sex trade in Sweden, are found murdered, Salander becomes a suspect and the two are intertwined once more in a quest to find the truth in a world of secrets. With even more entangled subplots and the added bonus of delving into Salander’s sordid past, the second novel has the power to literally make jaws drop.
The final installment has Salander fighting for her life after she gets into a gunfight with a nemesis from her past while dishonesty and corruption in law enforcement are laid bare. “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest” provides the series a climax that is equally complex, witty and moral to the rest of the series. The only problem with the book is that it is the last of the series.
Larsson’s unexpected death in 2004 came just after he turned in the manuscripts of all three Millennium novels to his Swedish publisher, yet still before his world-wide success. Larsson, whose resume reads as strikingly similar to that of his fictitious male lead Blomkvist, had an extensive background in the newspaper and magazine businesses, proving once again how great it is when people write what they know.
Though it’s tempting to devour chapter upon chapter of Larsson’s books in single sittings, readers beware: when the series is over there is no replacing these fast-paced novels that make the most elaborate episodes of “CSI” look dull and predictable.