The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (Millennium #2)
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.
This would have been my least favorite book of the trilogy if it wasn't the one in which the Lisbeth Slander mystery started to unravel.
From the three books, this is the one with the most normal beginning, with Mikael working on his magazine and enjoying the stardom and respect of his peers once again and Lisbeth on a prolonged vacation that she eventually ends and returns to Sweden only to buy the biggest house she can find and live there without telling anyone. I loved reading about Lisbeth not having any monetary worries for the first time in her life, being completely in control of her life, not being hung up on Mikael anymore and just relaxing and eating ramen. I loved that Lisbeth. That Lisbeth did not last long though.
Although I found Lisbeth and Mikael’s motive to reconnect a bit weird, it did make sense and I recognize that I just couldn’t swallow it immediately because I find Mikael super boring. But when the other main character in the book is Lisbeth freaking Salander, everyone will look drab in comparison.
My favorite part of the book was seeing Lisbeth reaction to the man-hunt organized by the police and how defamation and prejudice were used to change the public opinion on her and label her as guilty even before a trial could occur. She was charged guilty by the public opinion and the police even before being found and interrogated.
Her sexuality, in particular, was especially targeted and used as a way to prove she was degenerate and promiscuous even though that shouldn’t be anyone’s business but her own.
Her looks were another of the big themes. The author is always making sure that we know she is as skinny as one can be and almost as short as a child so it is even better seeing her floor grown men physically or from the other side of a screen. Lisbeth Salander is a superhero.
And as for the finale, what ending folks! Definitely the best out of all the three books. I could feel my heart in my throat for the last few chapters of this book.
And just as a piece of trivia:
Portugal translated this book’s title as “The girl who played with a can of gasoline and a match”
10/10
