The Girl who Played with Fire

Another wild ride is over.

The second in the Millennium series, Larsson does it again to bring you into this world he has made with the characters we already know and are invested with, a story to further our understanding of Lisbeth Salander, and a pace somewhat similar to the first yet not so long to pick up.

Where we left off from Dragon Tattoo, [Spoiler] Salander was walking away angry and walls back up with Blomkvist when she sees him heading out on the town with Berger. This is what happens when we think with hearts first and out on the sleeve; sometimes it does not work out. In Played with Fire, Salander becomes a woman on the run when the police find forensic evidence of her possibly killing a couple who are two steps away from releasing some really heavy shit that will sell out various people in important political and journalistic positions for sex trafficking and technically pedophilia. Which means that Blomkvist is naturally involved because he wants to see justice served, and which also means that he brings Millennium along.

It becomes a cluster of a manhunt [or womanhunt??] slash national investigation slash media frenzy that you do not really know what to make of it. There are some points where you kind of have to keep mental notes of who is who and who they work for and what they do because unlike the first book where it takes quite a bit of time before picking up the pace, Played with Fire is a continual stop-and-go. The police seem to set the pace, the media has to move super quick to release the stories as they follow the police, and Blomkvist has to move quicker than the police. Meanwhile, Salander is doing what she wants on her own time. In all of this storyline chaos, Larsson somehow is able to write us through while keeping us on our toes. I know that when reading, I was way more interested in what was going to happen.

I thought it was interesting how he tied in characters from the previous book, giving them relevancy, like Bjurman. As I was reading, I was starting to already put together that because Larsson wrote the three books together, I would think in a relatively short time, that the first two had to somehow culminate by the end, so certain things are being done and said for a reason. In other words, pay attention.

I would read this again, and I am glad I kept going in the series. This really was a great follow up, and I hope that the last one is on just as good a note to end this trilogy. I still do not have plans to read the follow up books after The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Nonetheless, you will be able to find The Girl who Played with Fire here.

9/10