The end of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest was both very satisfying and bitter sweet. The satisfaction comes from Larsson’s brilliant winding up of all the story threads in what has been called The Millennium Trilogy (the trilogy is comprised of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest).
It is bittersweet because after turning in the manuscripts of all three novels to his publisher, Stieg Larsson succumbed to a massive heart attack. He never lived to see the international phenomenon his work has become. For us it means we will never again travel with Liz Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is a five star work. First, it ties up all of the story lines created in the first two novels. It does so in a page turning thriller and in a believable way that leaves the reader cheering. The book starts were The Girl who Played with Fire left off. We find ourselves in the emergency room of a local hospital waiting for a life flight arrival of a girl who has been shot in the head.
From the start a secret section inside Sapo, the Swedish secret police, moves to protect the secrets surrounding the Zalachenko affair. They manipulate the prosecution of Salander, cutting her off from everyone except her lawyer and doctor. They will stop at nothing to hide their secrets including covert surveillance, intimidation and even murder. Their plan is to have Salander found incompetent and committed to an institution for the rest of her life, thereby discrediting her story as the ravings of a mad woman.
Arrayed against this group is Mikael Blomkvist together with Armansky and others who are fighting to free Salander and expose the truth behind the Zalachenko affair. But first he needs Salander’s help and he must contrive a way to communicate with her.
The story starts out as first rate spy thriller and develops into a legal thriller. The pacing is relentless and there are no real slow spots in the story. The novel should be read in great chucks and savored. The trial will warm the hearts of Salander fans and has one of the most devastating cross-examinations since Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent. But the story does not end with the trial and there a few more twists and turns. The end hits just the right note and will find approval of most fans.
Larsson, a liberal journalist, also made these novels into a social commentary. It is an indictment of a self proclaimed liberal socialist state’s failure to take action to stop acts of violence against and exploitation of women. Larsson also takes on Swedish society, which is supposed to be enlightened, for chauvinism and downright misogyny.
Larsson continues his social criticism pointing out how a social democracy has failed to protect its most vulnerable members. Finally, the books are an analysis of how secret police can, without proper oversight, create a group that is paranoid, self important, and view their mission so important that the ends justify the means to the point that their actions destroy the very thing they profess to protect.
In Summery if The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo rates four stars, then The Girl with who Played with Fire gets 4 and half stars and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest gets a full five stars.
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