The Girl Who Played With Fire

So now I know what there was such fanfare for Steig Larson a few years back. These are genuinely engrossing books. This second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire (here) was just as good as his first book The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo (here). The characters were just as intriguing and the story just as if not more compelling.



I liked the fact that more characters were introduced in this novel, and that much of the action took place not in small villages on the coast. It's easier for me to imagine a city setting rather than small sleepy Swedish villages. I also enjoyed some of the villains more in this book than the first. They were far more colorful and fun to follow.

What I didn't like was that it dealt more with the internal histories of the main characters, particularly of Lisbeth. The first novel had a degree of that with Blomqvist's past playing a part, but in this book it was primarily about Lisbeth's past. That makes me worry about the next book. Will it just be a continuation of that same story? I hope not.