The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium #3)
As an epilogue to the story started in the second book, this book wraps the trilogy satisfactorily. Some details present from the very beginning continued to annoy me till the end, but weren't bothersome enough to interrupt reading. That mostly refers to the frank use of brand names and such, which I deeply dislike in any kind of fiction. Call me picky, but not only these names already seem outdated now, they were too obvious not to be considered paid-for commercials, even if they were only figments of imagination - didn't care enough to make that query. I honestly couldn't care less for any of the products mentioned in the book... If only the mention of each was less frequent!
Interesting how all three books differ very much in the sub-genre of the fiction they belong to. The first one is true example of investigative journalistic thriller; the second is typical murder case(s) thriller, while the third is more a courtroom thriller. Naturally these subgenres intertwine in each novel, especially because many characters belong to different spheres of crime investigation scene (journalists, lawyers, detectives, police officers, government agents) but the presence of one dominates over the others in each of the books. At least that was my impression of the whole series.
I am still very impressed by his minute, very precise writing style in a fashion of one true journalist, in which he carefully unraveled the storyline and logic behind the decisions of all the characters. The only imperfection -- beside one blatant mentioned above -- would be that all the characters were perfect in their own way. Aside their peculiar private lives (for which I might care or not at some point, but didn't really affect any storyline at all), every main character was perfect. Mikael was perfect journalist, Erika perfect magazine editor, Lisbeth perfect investigator, Anders perfect doctor, Annika perfect lawyer, Monica perfect police officer, Susanne perfect security officer et cetera. While I love to see so many people that thrive morally, ethically and else in their own professions - that is quite refreshening and reassuring to read once in a while at least in the fiction - but it loses its appeal when all the main "villains" are quite the opposite in their own professions.
Overall, first book should be rather regarded as a prequel to the series, because it merely introduces us to the characters, and the storyline is different from the other books. The character development is also a bit inconsistent with the other books, meaning Lisbeth from the first book isn't quite the same from the second and the third book. Also, I wasn't really impressed with Lisbeth as many other reviewers were. Had Larsson lived to write another novel, I would certainly read it too, but not because of characters. I was more impressed with the storyweaving and peculiar crime solving methods described in detail and with ease hard to compare with any other modern crime fiction writer.
