Book Review - The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Played With Fire


Stieg Larsson

630 Pages

“Fans of intelligent page-turners will be more than satisfied by Larsson's second thriller, even though it falls short of the high standard set by its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which introduced crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist and punk hacker savant Lisbeth Salander. A few weeks before Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, plans to publish a story that exposes important people involved in Sweden's sex trafficking business based on research conducted by his girlfriend, Mia Johansson, a criminologist and gender studies scholar, the couple are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Salander, who has a history of violent tendencies, becomes the prime suspect after the police find her fingerprints on the murder weapon. While Blomkvist strives to clear Salander of the crime, some far-fetched twists help ensure her survival. Powerful prose and intriguing lead characters will carry most readers along.” – Publishers Weekly

Larsson definitely has a talent for keeping a reader hooked. I sat enthralled during “Dragon Tattoo” and this follow up novel was the same way. The story picks up a year or so after we left Lisabeth & Mikael and follows them while they prove Lisabeth’s innocence.

In the first, the main characters were Mikael, Lisabeth, Henrik & Harriet Vanger. In this novel, we are introduced to several new characters and others, such as Berger, get some more fleshing out. The only time I got confused was with all the various cops names and characters, especially the two working from Milton.

I was a bit disappointed that after all the lead up to “All that Evil” it turned out to be what it was. Yes, what happened was not pretty but after what happened with her guardian in the first novel and other things, I guess I was just expecting it to go that "shocking" route. My biggest gripe would be the ending, or well a common theme during both books. I am all for this being fiction and having to have a hyper sense of reality, but this girl is supposed to be 4’11” and the size of a 12 year old, yet she is beating the crap out of giants, getting knocked around, etc. Adrenaline, fight or flight survival, I get it, but there is also a physical limitation of what a person’s body can take, she’s not a vampire. The ending, just, I could not get myself to not roll my eyes. That being said, it still hooked me enough that I cannot wait to read the third and final book which was just released “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”.