[BOOK REVIEW] "The Girl Who Played With Fire" by Stieg Larsson

rating: *****

I'm finding it difficult to put into words how I feel about this book. I mean, it's the second in the Millennium trilogy and follows on from where "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" left off. Now, after the first book's tediously slow start, I thoroughly enjoyed the plot and especially the character of Lisbeth Salander (who doesn't?) so I was in two minds before starting the second book as it had a lot to live up to.

In a nutshell, this book was so much better than the first. I actually find it a bit hard to believe that the first book gets so much attention while "The Girl Who Played With Fire" rarely gets a mention. It's just incredibly. The first book took its time getting the plot in motion whereas this one jumps right in at the deep end and I was hooked from start to finish. I'm honestly finding it difficult to pin point anything that I didn't like about it (I mean, apart from the usual not being able to pronounce all the Swedish names but that's hardly a fault when the book was originally published in Swedish and set in Sweden).

Again, we follow Mikael Blomkvist, this time after he's published his earth-shattering book about  Wennerström when he gets approached by a journalist called Dag Svensson who has been working on a book about sex trafficking in Sweden. Just before the book is due to be published, Svensson and his girlfriend are found shot dead in their apartment and Salander's fingerprints are on the weapon. The book thereafter primarily focuses on the police hunt for Salander and it's just brilliant. Plus, it ends on such a cliffhanger that it left me itching to read the third.

^.^