mass market paperback, 724 pages
English language
Published March 21, 2010 by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.
Crusading publisher Mikael Blomkvist has decided to run an explosive expose of a wide-ranging sex trafficking operation. Just before the piece is published, two people are brutally murdered. The fingerprints on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled hacker genius Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Lisbeth herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, and is forced to face her dark past.
~from back cover
Another slow starter from Larsson, but as the book picks up pace it just gets more and more gripping. I was completely floored (in a good way) by the ending, so much so that I started the next book in the series within 10 minutes of finishing this one.
This one played a lot like a long episode of CSI (which I don't enjoy). Also, I'm not the kind of person who cares very much about eloquent sentence structure, but Larsson's awkward phrasing makes me chuckle - to the point that it too oft interrupted the flow of reading.
I did like the book, though. Larsson continues to do a great job with the suspense, action, and character development in this second book from the trilogy. Also, on a personal note: it may just be my horrible memory, but similar to my reaction to the first book, I didn't remember most of the details from the film (even though I loved all of the Swedish-language movies from this trilogy). The third book is in the mail!
