The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

This was the sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, with the main character being Lisbeth Salander, and Larsson includes some of the other same characters from his first book. Once again, the background topic has to do with the abuse of women and sexual trafficking, and the extent to which it gets covered up. Mikael Blomkvist, who was the guy that came to the aid of Salander in the first book, is now about to publish a new book written by Mia Johansson who is using the material for her Ph.D. thesis. And, simultaneously, Johansson’s fiancé, Dag Svensson, is about to write a series of articles exposing numerous people in the sex trade in Sweden, to be published by Blomkvist in his magazine Millennium. But, Mia and Dag are murdered when Dag’s research takes him too near a most dangerous character. As Salander does her research into these matters, she finds out that her own extremely abusive past is tied to these same really bad guys. Larsson also writes some other characters into the story, so there are intrigues with the cops and with the publishing business. It’s all good, and Larsson is a must read. The good news is that before he died in 2004 from a heart attack at the age of 50, Larsson turned in three manuscripts, so the third, which is the last of a trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. His website indicates he has been the second biggest selling author worldwide. I know that his third book has already been published, is available in book stores, but it is still in the pre-order phase on Kindle, so I’ll order it and read it as soon as it is released.

West Coast Don