The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

It's difficult to write a review of The Girl Who Played with Fire without sounding like some dramatic, amped-up voiceover for an action flick. Many cliches come to mind when thinking about the book but none of them do it any sort of justice. This is a very visceral work that grabs the reader from page one and doesn't even let go at the book's conclusion. In fact, that conclusion is guaranteed to provoke a response of, "That's the end?", leaving the reader to wish that the third installment was instantly available.

Larsson's first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, dealt with the world of corporate greed and introduced us to the character of Lisbeth Salander. That book was cagey with the details of her life but The Girl Who Played with Fire fills in all those holes. I wouldn't dream of spoiling the book for someone who hasn't yet read it so suffice it to say that the details are shocking and provide a very in-depth understanding of what has driven Salander over the years. She is one of the most unique characters in contemporary literature. Larsson handles her with great deftness and the reasons behind her special brand of morality become very understandable as the novel progresses. The reader can't help but sympathize and empathize with Lisbeth--which she probably would hate.

Though this book deals with an outwardly more misogynist topic--sex trafficking--the theme of misogyny is carried over from the first book and this is where Larsson is at his best. Modern society would like to think that times have changed and though Larsson's novel is a work of fiction, it serves to reflect how pervasive misogyny is in today's world. His novel is something of an expose of the prevalence of violence against women and a statement of how deeply sexism is ingrained into the world's cultures, even those in which the rights of the sexes are ostensibly equal. Fighting against this is Salander's particular crusade, one that threatens to consume her very being.

And yet sexism is only one part of the equation. The book also carries a strong theme of prejudice against homosexuals. While the events of both novels revolve around murder mysteries they are, at heart, novels about racism and prejudice in its various forms. Larsson vividly illustrates how prejudice affects not only the treatment of those subject to it, but how that prejudice affects the justice they receive. No one is safe from this criticism as Larsson's novels take on the justice system, the press, and everyday people. There is an important statement here about how racism and prejudice lead to the pollution of society from within.

The pacing of the novel is beautiful and the new characters are fascinating. Though the first novel in the series was very well-written and engrossing, this novel is even better. The subject matter is arguably more explosive and the events in the lives of the characters take on an even greater urgency than they did in the first. Larsson's novels aren't so much mystery novels as they are platforms for exploring the darker side of human nature and human nature doesn't get much darker than in The Girl Who Played with Fire. Rarely does a novel live up to all the hype surrounding it but this one deserves every one of the raves it receives and then some.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a very intricately layered novel. While the book mainly centers on two separate mysteries that are loosely connected due to the players involved, it also deals--almost casually--with everyday violence and especially violence against women. It is the frequency of this violence in the novel that makes it so disturbing.

The novel's most interesting character is Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is a social misfit with a core of anger simmering just below her surface. The author is coy about what it is that motivates Lisbeth but the reader is given some hints as to past events in Lisbeth's life that have led her to become the very antisocial person she has become. Her methods of dealing with events in her life are unorthodox, to say the least, but she is a very sympathetic character and I found myself both rooting for her and feeling her pain.

Aside from Lisbeth, the novel has a pretty vast cast of characters who are all very well-drawn and unique. Larsson's characters are very three dimensional and lifelike. His Vanger clan is filled with truly diverse characters.

The two mysteries at the core of the novel are both fascinating in their own right. One of the mysteries has to do with the disappearance of Harriet Vanger nearly fifty years previous while the other has to do with the activities of a prominent and much-lauded Swedish businessman. Larsson does a deft job of weaving these two stories together, even though the two have no real connection to one another and each would have been enough in and of itself to constitute a novel.

At its heart, this is a dark story of indifference to--if not acceptance of--violence. Whether Larsson is describing crimes against women or the rise of the Nazi movement in Sweden, Larsson is making a statement. The crimes he describes aren't exactly rare and I had a sense of anger that more or less permeates every page. It seems as though Larsson wants to draw attention to the ills of his country and I was left with the impression that perhaps Sweden--like many other nations--sometimes has the tendency to overlook its problems rather than acknowledge the horror of them.