Last January (2008) the first of three volumes in the Millennium Trilogy was published in an English translation of the original Swedish novel by the late journalist/author Stieg Larsson. It was called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
I happened upon it in a bookshop in Adelaide, starting reading it and got totally absorbed in the world and the characters it created.
The second volume has just been published. It's called The Girl Who Played with Fire, and it's equally absorbing. Like the first one it's long (569 pages) but you really don't want it to end by the time you've finished it.
Like all popular fiction, of course, the main characters are pretty much larger than life. The goodies are heroic, kind, highly intelligent and competent, and the baddies cruel, violent, ugly, fat and, predictably, respected in establishment circles.
Larson also has a major problem with sex. It's gratuitous and it grates. The goodies are always jumping into bed with one another because they are good at it and enjoy it, and the baddies are always raping innocents, if not children.
Nevertheless, we can forgive Larsson for that, because he's given us such excellent and complex plots, all set in the cities and towns of Sweden, a magnificent country most of us know so little about.
You can't get much better holiday reading than these two novels. I can't wait for the third one this time next year.
I happened upon it in a bookshop in Adelaide, starting reading it and got totally absorbed in the world and the characters it created.
The second volume has just been published. It's called The Girl Who Played with Fire, and it's equally absorbing. Like the first one it's long (569 pages) but you really don't want it to end by the time you've finished it.
Like all popular fiction, of course, the main characters are pretty much larger than life. The goodies are heroic, kind, highly intelligent and competent, and the baddies cruel, violent, ugly, fat and, predictably, respected in establishment circles.
Larson also has a major problem with sex. It's gratuitous and it grates. The goodies are always jumping into bed with one another because they are good at it and enjoy it, and the baddies are always raping innocents, if not children.
Nevertheless, we can forgive Larsson for that, because he's given us such excellent and complex plots, all set in the cities and towns of Sweden, a magnificent country most of us know so little about.
You can't get much better holiday reading than these two novels. I can't wait for the third one this time next year.
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