A couple of months ago, on my other blog, I waxed eloquent about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first in the late Stieg Larsson's trilogy about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. It was a fabulous mystery/thriller (one of my favorite genres) with great characters, an exotic setting and I didn't see any of the twists coming. I loved it, and it even made my best of the year post. Since there's not much that I love as much as a good series, I have been really eager to get my hands on book two, The Girl Who Played with Fire.
I'm about two hundred and twenty pages in, and so far I'm not doing jumping jacks. The trilogy was famously published after Larsson died, and despite its many wonderful qualities, you could tell that Tattoo lacked editing. Fire, even more so.
I already know that the plot involves Lisbeth being framed for a crime she didn't commit (thank you, back-of-the-book plot summary), but so far nothing like that has happened yet. She's bummed around the Caribbean a lot, got involved in a weird murder plot that got derailed by a surprise hurricane/tornado, reconnected with her old girlfriend Mimmi and done a lot of shopping. Like, a lot. It's almost like Larsson combined his furniture wish-list with fiction. I like his sometimes quirky focus, but who's interested in hearing what kind of end table Lisbeth settles on at IKEA? And isn't this kind out of character for Lisbeth, who supposedly has no taste and no interest in having conventionally nice things? She doesn't strike me as the kind of girl who would spend six hours buying sofas, even if she did have billions of kronor.
Anywho, Lisbeth's old nemesis, Advokat Bjurman, seems to be forming an alliance against her with a blond giant from her past, who is in turn linked with a motorcycle gang who smuggles crystal meth. All of this is somehow linked with the human trafficking story that Millennium is working on, and some Serbian and/or Czech gangster named Zala that everyone is afraid of. It's a tangled web at present, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all fits together. I'm kind of hoping that the real story will get going soon.
Oh, and Blomkvist is in a relationship with Harriet Vanger. I don't know why, but that really shocked me! I actually said "What!" out loud when I read it, because I'm dramatic that way. Looking back at the end of Tattoo, there were some hints that there might be chemistry between the two, but what with Blomkvist knowing about her horrible past, I just never thought of them getting together. But getting together they are, which is a neat use of Harriet as a recurring character. We really haven't seen much of Blomkvist so far, and I'm a little worried that the book will suffer without having the focus on him. I love me some Lisbeth, don't get me wrong, but she's tricky to have as the sole protagonist. Having Blomkvist at the center of Tattoo gave the book balance.
Things that I hope happen in Fire:
~ Bjurman gets his disgusting ass killed, preferably by Lisbeth.
~ We get major answers about Lisbeth's back story (and maybe meet her sister?).
~ Erika Berger takes an extended leave of absence from the magazine. I don't know why, but I find her annoying.
~ We find out why the blond giant is being haunted by some kind of troll or fairy. Seriously. I do not understand this at all. Is he crazy? Hallucinating? Maybe a big fan of the Spiderwick Chronicles?
~ We get a few substantial Blomkvist/Salander scenes, because they were the highlight of Tattoo.
~ I figure out how to pronounce the name of the motorcycle club.
~ Blomkvist gets to do something awesomely badass, because 1) he's long overdue for it, and 2) he's played by James Bond in the movie, for God's sake!
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