The Girl Who Played with Fire
by Stieg Larsson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Stieg LarssonTranslator: Reg Keeland
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2009-07-28
ISBN: 0307269981
Number of pages: 503
Publisher: Knopf
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780307269980
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Book Reviews of The Girl Who Played with Fire
Book Review: Perfectly Plotted Thriller with a Social Agenda
Summary: 4 Stars
Stieg Larsson is a writer with a social agenda. In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (DRAGON TATTOO), he turns his lens to corporate corruption and sexual violence against women. In The Girl Who Played with Fire (FIRE), he focuses on the sex trade, and all of the corrupt journalists, police officers, and lawyers who collude with the thugs who trade in the trafficking of Eastern European women for sex. DRAGON TATTOO introduced us to a host of complex, fascinating characters--Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, Erika Berger, the staff of Millennium magazine, Nils Bjurman, Dragan Armansky, Holger Palmgren, and Mimmi--who are absolutely central to the plot of FIRE as well. In FIRE, crimes that surround the sex trade, including the murders of Bjurman, and two others, are woven into Salander's personal story and provide the key to her mysterious past. Salander is suspected of commiting these murders and yet readers know--or at least hope--that she is innocent. Involved, yes, but we must believe that she is somehow innocent. So, taking our cue from many of Larsson character, we put on the coffee, and delve into this wonderfully plotted thriller.
The novel opens with a genius prologue. In it, we read of a young Salander who is being held captive by a malicious man who by all appearances seems to be emotionally and sexually abusing her, and subjecting her to sadistic practices and solitary confinement. Since the novel--and the three murders it needs to solve--revolves around the sex trade, I immediately assumed that Salander's mysterious past must have had some connection with the sex trade and that she herself possibly was one of the unlucky girls who was a victim of the trade.
Through a clever plot twist, Larsson upends the assumptions that readers may have made in the prologue. It's not a sadistic sex offender or rapist like Nils Bjurman who is holding Salander captive, but (without giving it away) something much more mundane. So, the sadistic torture chamber a la Martin Vanger gives way to something more ordinary, which then allows Larsson to launch a biting social critique of some of the most commonplace social institutions.
The plot of FIRE is complex, with a veritable menagerie of characters, and keeping them straight can be sometimes confusing. Milennium magazine is slated to publish a freelance writer's story on the sex trade (based on said writer's girlfriend's doctoral dissertation) when the two, shortly after a visit from Salander, are found murdered in their apartment. Not only this, but Nils Bjurman is found murdered in his apartment on the same night. Salander is pinned for the murders, and hides out from the authorities, using her amazing abilities to survey the scene through her laptop. The police launch an investigation and we meet a host of interesting detectives. Meanwhile, Blomkvist and Dragan Armansky, both of whom Salander has all but ignored for the past two years, both believe Salander is innocent and each investigates the crime. Keeping the threads of each investigation separate is a challenge for this reader.
FIRE is different from DRAGON TATTOO in that it focuses mostly on the character of Lisbeth Salander. The middle section is largely a police procedural. FIRE does not delve into the horrific depths that DRAGON TATTOO did. If there is horror in FIRE, it lies in a family's dark secrets rather than a sadist's torture chamber, and the cruelty of one family member to another.
Parts of the novel seemed improbable, and even bordered on the absurd. For example, the characters of Paolo Roberto and "The Giant" Niedermann seemed either unlikely to exist at all, or unrealistically "played" by the author in service of the plot's action scenes. I also found Salander's tenacious rebound in the novel's conclusion unlikely at best. (I was rooting for her all the way, no doubt, but felt the scene was a bit too far fetched.) The novel frames each section with an epigraph devoted to mathematical theorems. We discover that Salander is at work trying to solve Fermat's theorem. Yet what is the connection between Fermat's famous riddle and Salander's own personal quest to find resolution in her past? I read and reread the section, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how she solves the mathematical conundrum at the novel's conclusion.
The novel introduces several elements that are not resolved at the end, but will presumably be taken care of in the third installation, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest: What will Ericka Berger's professional fate be? What will come of Milennium magazine? And what was the significance of the crime that Salander witnessed while staying on Grenada?
In my opinion, Larsson does an amazing job of writing a perfectly plotted thriller with a social conscience. I really liked how FIRE, like DRAGON TATTOO, takes up the issue of violence against women. There was surprisingly little said about the actual sex trade, but the novel did make unexpected forays into GLBT issues by introducing lesbian or bisexual characters, and showing the overwhelming prejudices that still exist on behalf of the police investigators and the media, who are quick to deploy vicious stereotypes. Larsson has created a gem in the character of Lisbeth Salander. I'm sure that readers of all political persuasions (and attitudes towards feminism and women's rights) will be rooting for this young woman who has been so victimized by male-dominated institutions and society's pervasive prejudices against women. (I guess that if the enlightened Scandinavian country of Sweden is still struggling with gender prejudice, then we all still are.)
I thoroughly enjoyed FIRE, and could not put the book down until I had reached the conclusion. With that said, I felt that it did not live up to the heights achieved by DRAGON TATTOO, but I would imagine that it would be difficult to achieve such a literary feat twice in one's life. You must read this!
Summary of The Girl Who Played with Fire
Mikael Blomkvist, crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government.But he has no idea just how explosive the story will be until, on the eve of publication, the two investigating reporters are murdered. And even more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander-the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who came to his aid in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and who now becomes the focus and fierce heart of The Girl Who Played with Fire.
As Blomkvist, alone in his belief in Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation of the slayings, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past in an effort to settle with it once and for all.
Amazon Best of the Month, July 2009: The girl with the dragon tattoo is back. Stieg Larsson's seething heroine, Lisbeth Salander, once again finds herself paired with journalist Mikael Blomkvist on the trail of a sinister criminal enterprise. Only this time, Lisbeth must return to the darkness of her own past (more specifically, an event coldly known as "All the Evil") if she is to stay one step ahead--and alive. The Girl Who Played with Fire is a break-out-in-a-cold-sweat thriller that crackles with stunning twists and dismisses any talk of a sophomore slump. Fans of Larsson's prior work will find even more to love here, and readers who do not find their hearts racing within the first five pages may want to confirm they still have a pulse. Expect healthy doses of murder, betrayal, and deceit, as well as enough espresso drinks to fuel downtown Seattle for months. --Dave Callanan
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