Swedish Author Stieg Larsson's Thriller 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' Reviewed in The Washington Post
Posted by Susanna at 4:40 PM, Jul 27, 2009 (Comments)
Category: Design & Art
LAST YEAR SWEDISH journalist and author Stieg Larsson's thriller "The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo" (in Swedish: "Men Who Hate Women") was published in the United States. The leading character in that story about solving a decades-old mystery involving a missing member of a wealthy Swedish family, is the journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Another prominent character is the genious Lisbeth Salander, who is a computer hacker. The thriller has also become a film with the roles played by Michael Nyqvist as Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace as Salander.
STIEG LARSSON, who died at the age 50 in 2004, wrote a trilogy of novels, called Millennium, and was working on his fourth novel when he died. Stockholm's dark side is being showcased in his novels.
NOW HIS next novel, "The Girl Who Played With Fire," has been released in the U.S. Evidence at the crime scenes of three killings points to Lisbeth Salander, who is being portrayed as a crackpot and loner. But she is also highly intelligent, interested in higher mathematics and also a computer nerd. While she eludes the police, she is being helped by her old colleague and boyfriend Mikael Blomkvist. Another prominent figure in the story is Nils Erik Bjurman, the lawyer, sexual sadist, and guardian she reports to as a condition to stay out of mental hospital.
THE WASHINGTON POST writer Dennis Drabelle notes that "all the more disturbing in light of Sweden's (...) sexual liberalism. If contempt for women is widespread in a country where love is all around, the reader might wonder, what help is there for societies still enmeshed in Puritanism?" Drabelle writes that Larsson has two critical skills for good entertainment: creating complex characters and giving out information in an enthralling way. The reviewer is less impressed with a climactic episode that is too contrived. But the reviewer points out that, despite the author's early death, he managed to write at least two first-rate thrillers. And the third one will be published in English next year.
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