Another installment of Steig Larsson’s Millennium trilogy complete, and I am absolutely hooked. I’m even tempted to buy The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest from Amazon’s UK Store, but I should be able to hold off until it’s published here. I’ve only got to wait a few weeks now.
Larsson is a master of suspense, and he has a knack for making the unbelievable make perfect sense. Two books in a row, he’s brought a dead person back to life—two completely different characters killed and reincarnated in two completely different ways.
But I think his greatest success is that he is able to give the reader just enough information. By following a handful of characters through overlapping plot lines, Larsson gives us a picture of proceedings that is infinitesimally more complete than the picture any one of those characters has. We know enough to formulate our own theories, but not nearly so much as to allow those theories to become foregone conclusions.
I know Larsson’s books can hook me. I’m just not sure yet whether they can cut me loose. The first two installments have each ended on the ledge of a cliff. Will the final installment prove to be the last piece of the puzzle?