The Girl Who Played With Fire

Book 2 in the “Millennium” series. This one again mixes personal history with international intrigue, but this time the goal is to learn more about Lisbeth Salander, who was something of an enigma in the first book.

Larsson does this by having her accused of murder, after which she goes into hiding. Mikael Blomvkist is determined that she's not guilty, so he starts his own investigation separate from the police one, which requires delving into Lisbeth's personal history and unlocking some huge secrets. It's an interesting way of telling the story, and one that allows everyone to stay in character while allowing Larsson to continue to present Blomkvist as the hero of the story, even though he seems to recognize that Lisbeth is the most interesting character.

Larsson's mysteries work well because there's some elements in them that are obvious, so you feel smart for guessing them before the characters do, but other elements that you (or at least I) don't seem coming so you stay surprised and hooked throughout the story.

One minor thing that bugged me while reading this was Larsson's tendency to use brand names and product details to create verisimilitude. It's enough for me to know that Salander used her laptop to hack into someone's computer; I don't need to know that it's an iBook with a 15.6” screen, or the exact amounts of RAM and hard drive space that it has.