The Girl Who Played With Fire

Stieg Larsson, a Swedish journalist, managed to turn in the manuscripts for three thrillers before he passed away at the age of fifty. The first, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, was a huge bestseller. I recently finished the second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, but I don't recommend starting with that one, as there is a lot of reference to events that must have happened in the first book--these books do not stand alone.

Larsson's writing is also afflicted with a malady that many first-time mystery writers suffers from. He has a strong tendency of overdescribing, and bogs the narrative down with massive amounts of extraneous details. When he mentions a character he frequently gives us their precise age, plus a recitation of their background. This has the effect of stopping the action with dry facts that made the early portions of the book, which are exposition-heavy, a chore to get through. This alleviates a lot as the plot kicks in, but even toward the end of the book, when we're closing in a climax, he gives us the inventory of a character's kitchen: "The refrigerator contained an open milk carton, some cheese, butter, caviar, and a half-empty jar of pickled gherkins. The kitchen cupboard contained four half-empty jars of vitamins, tea bags, coffee for an ordinary coffeemaker, two loaves of bread, and a packet of crispbreads. On the kitchen table was a bowl of apples. There were three ham pies and a fish casserole in the freezer. That was all the food he found in the apartment. In the trash under the counter next to the stove he saw several empty packages for Billy's Pan Pizza." Not exactly gripping material, and there is a lot of this in the novel.

The book features two lead characters: Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist, and Lisbeth Salander, a troubled computer hacker. They met in the first book and shared an adventure, which is referenced often, which is why the books clearly need to be read in proper order. As the book begins, Salander is traveling the world, and there is a long sequence about her stay in Grenada, including weathering a hurricane. As I think back, there is little reason why this was included in the book, and could have cut easily. The meat of the book really doesn't begin until close to page 200 of a 500 page book.

Larsson is also amateurish in creating his characters. Blomkvist is the kind of intrepid journalist that is common in mystery novels, and is given fantasy characteristics, such as being a ladies' man and very good in bed. Salander is a petite women who is covered in tattoos, possesses great martial arts abilities, and is a computer genius. Did I mention that she's also bisexual? Larsson's villain is a six-foot-six hulk who is incapable of feeling pain.

Despite all this, I got caught up in the book's second half. The plot concerns two of Blomkvist's colleagues, who are murdered while working on a book about Eastern European women who are trafficked to Sweden for prostitution (this is the subject of a terrific film, Lilya-4-Ever). Salander, who distanced herself from Blomkvist, is suspected of the crime, given that the gun has her fingerprints on it. Blomkvist is convinced of her innocence, and works with the police to clear her name. Meanwhile we get involved not only in the world of sex trafficking, but also of the evils of a system which has improperly classified Salander as psychotic. Larsson is a writer who is sympathetic to the plight of women, without exploiting the issue (although he does include a few Lesbian sex scenes).

If I had read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo first I might have not had the problems I did with The Girl Who Played With Fire. But I still think the book demanded much more judicious editing. 500 pages is long for a thriller, and it could have easily lost 100 pages or more.