The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Title: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Author: Stieg Larsson
Series: Millenium Trilogy, book 3
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2010 (US)

Recommendation: Vivid. Gritty. Intense. Will not disappoint.
Rating: 10/10

Summary: Lisbeth Salander and her father Zalachenko are both brought to the hospital in critical state. Blomkvist and other friends of Lisbeth group together to prove her innocence at the upcoming trial, while a group at Sapo, Swedish secret police works very hard to cover their tracks and send Salander back to a mental institution. Who will prevail?

Reactions: I have been looking forward to this book ever since reading the first two books of this trilogy in February. There are many ways to describe this book, but disappointing isn't one of them. In fact, Larsson makes a come back and I would call this the strongest book of the whole series.

For one, the ends get wrapped up to my satisfaction, but at the same time the plot doesn't sizzle out early the way it happened in book one of the series. My only disappointment is that there aren't any more books with the same characters I grew to enjoy so much.

There are a few new players in this book, but mostly we see the characters we've met before. There are large parts of the book devoted to Mikael Blomkvist, Lisbeth Salander, Erika Berger and other major players we've met in The Girl Who Played With Fire. Their interactions with each other and the connected whole they create in this book made for very fun reading.

The plot follows the steps of two factions. One faction trying to tell the truth about Lisbeth, and The Section who are trying to clean up after themselves and Zalachenko. There are a few unexpected twists and turns the story takes early in the book that I very much enjoyed. There are several major surprises towards the end of the book as well. I had trouble putting the book down and finished all the reading within a couple evenings of reading late.

Overall, I really wish I could pick up more books by Stieg Larsson, but sadly this is all there is. I do encourage everyone to pick up this book or the first book in the series if you haven't read it yet. Stieg Larsson will blow you away.