The Girl Who Played with Fire is the second book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. It’s my second favorite book in the series, which ought to give you a clue about this series’ diminishing returns. Which isn’t to say it’s not good. It is, it just falls far short of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Part of that for me is the nature of the mystery. The combination of the extended locked room mystery, the family secrets bubbling beneath the surface and the incredible payoff of the first book, pretty much anything that follows will pale in comparison and in this case the very nature of the mystery has changed. It’s like picking up one of those serial killer series and all of a sudden the protagonist is out hunting down white collar criminals for embezzlement. Sure, the “men who hate women” angle of the original book’s Swedish title is heavily at play in this volume, but the focus shifts from the personal, and much more satisfying, individual stories of Dragon to a “meta” story of governments, conspiracies and defectors. It’s like switching from Thomas Harris to John Le Carre or something. Not necessarily bad but not what you’d expect or want.
Okay, enough comparisons… Taken on its own merits, this is still a damn fine book. The characters are fascinating and the complex mystery is enough to keep the pages turning. So, if you go in with slightly lowered expectations, you’ll have a winner on your hands.
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