The Girl Who Played With Fire

Book II in the Millennium trilogy, by Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire is even more gripping and astonishing than its predecessor The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Mikael Blomkvist is back at the Millennium offices, having made a successful reputation by exposing corrupt business tycoons and establishment figures. So when a young journalist approaches him with an investigation into sex trafficking, Blomkvist cannot resist creating a stir and hanging some well-known and respected people in high places out to dry. However, this exciting venture is cut short when the journalist and his fiancé are found in their apartment shot dead. With the murder weapon left at the scene covered in fingerprints, the case gets interesting when a suspect is named. Lisbeth Salander, genius computer hacker and official danger to society is wanted for murder, but the downside is no one has any clue how to find her. The only way to contact Salander is by computer and she can break into and control any network or computer she chooses.

Even more thrilling than the first book, The Girl Who Played With Fire is an astonishing novel filled with murder, prostitution, rape, violent beatings, and heart-stopping twists of the plot. Written in much the same way as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, this book sees the return of all our favourite and unfavourite characters as well as the introduction of a few new ones. I think this book can be described best by one word: whirlwind. The story twists and turns at breakneck speed and it’s really exciting to watch (or read), but leaves a hell of a lot of damage. Throughout the story you will find yourself gasping for breath and massaging your temples. You may even need to lie down. The real difference about this book is that it begins to get a lot more personal regarding the character of Lisbeth. In Girl With the Dragon Tattoo we learnt about Blomkvist and the story was more focused on the goal at hand, but in this book the only way the goal can be achieved is by learning everything we can about Lisbeth Salander. For all those people who have seen the movie The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, there are a couple of flashback scenes that actually come from this book. So if you’re looking for the answer to those flashbacks and what they had to do with the story, they didn’t have anything to do with that story and the answer you’re looking for is in this book. That was the only part about the movie that really annoyed me. The Girl Who Played With Fire is filled with personal flashbacks from Lisbeth Salander and I have to say that it is wonderful to have some sort of insight into this character. After all she is one of the most celebrated and original heroines of this age! Be forewarned though, that this book is much more detailed and graphic than the first. There is a lot more violence and sex and it is all described in great detail. Not for the fainthearted. But if you thought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was brilliant, then you will definitely have a cardiac arrest from reading this book. It’s almost too awesome and genius to be legal!