German language
Published Aug. 28, 2008 by Heyne Verlag.
The Girl Who Played with Fire (Swedish: Flickan som lekte med elden) is the second novel in the best-selling Millennium series by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. It was published posthumously in Swedish in 2006 and in English in January 2009. The book features many of the characters who appeared in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005), among them the title character, Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant computer hacker and social misfit, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and publisher of Millennium magazine. Widely seen as a critical success, The Girl Who Played with Fire was also (according to The Bookseller magazine) the first and only translated novel to be number one in the UK hardback chart.
I enjoyed this even more than the first book. It is also a much better story than the film, which focused mostly on the action.
I liked how we go into details of the characters and back-story of the protagonist.
Because the story involves the characters I like a lot more instead of solving some random crime I was also a lot more engaged.
Talk about a cliffhanger ending. I didn't like the actual plot as much as I did in the first book. In the first book revealing the past really had me somewhat terrified and surely revolted, and the main plot of the second book didn't grip me as hard. Which doesn't mean that it's bad, not at all, just different. After ungodly amounts of exposition and incredible amounts of Billy's Pan Pizza, the plot really started rolling at pretty much the 40% mark and was unstoppable to the end. I am quite eager to start on the final book now.
As amusing anecdote, I googled Billy's Pan Pizza and found out that I am not the only reader who really had to check what Salander keeps eating. The Millenium trilogy has more product placement than an episode of Top Chef.
I'm afraid this was my guilty pleasure. I don't usually read crime novels, and maybe I'm easily satisfied, but judging by how many people like Stieg Larsson's novels, I'm in a good and numerous company.
The story starts slowly and almost the whole first half of the book is lost on retelling bits from the first book, and Salander furnishing her new apartment, for which we are given a detailed list of IKEA furniture items, together with the unpronounceable names of the articles and price. It made me wonder if the author had a stake in IKEA, or just couldn't get over his student-days infatuation with cheap and non-durable furniture.
However, once people finally get killed, the story picks up. Like an old steam-engine locomotive, it starts to roll snail-like slow at first, but faster with every turned page. Of course, since there's the third book, it took away a …
I'm afraid this was my guilty pleasure. I don't usually read crime novels, and maybe I'm easily satisfied, but judging by how many people like Stieg Larsson's novels, I'm in a good and numerous company.
The story starts slowly and almost the whole first half of the book is lost on retelling bits from the first book, and Salander furnishing her new apartment, for which we are given a detailed list of IKEA furniture items, together with the unpronounceable names of the articles and price. It made me wonder if the author had a stake in IKEA, or just couldn't get over his student-days infatuation with cheap and non-durable furniture.
However, once people finally get killed, the story picks up. Like an old steam-engine locomotive, it starts to roll snail-like slow at first, but faster with every turned page. Of course, since there's the third book, it took away a lot of suspense over the main character getting killed. Still, although I knew she'll live to kick the hornets nest, I found Salander's solitary search for justice and vengeance holding my attention until the very last page.
If you manage to survive the numbingly slow first half, you may find yourself thoroughly enjoying the climax of a much better second half.
