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The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

By Stieg Larsson

(394)

| Others | 9781906694166

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Critics

Good women and bad men

Just in case you hadn’t guessed after nearly 1,800 pages of the ‘Millennium’ trilogy, the late Stieg Larsson has his alter-ego hero Mikel Blomkvist spell it out. ‘This story is not primarily about spies and secret government agencies,’ he says. ‘It’s ... (read full critics)

spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

The Girl in the £20m Inheritance Battle – partner of late novelist Stieg Larsson fights for share of fortune

As the author of three dark and violent crime novels, Stieg Larsson was at home in a dysfunctional landscape of simmering resentments and rancourous family secrets. But the Swedish writer cannot have foreseen how, almost five years to the day after h ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Tue, 14 Sep 2010

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26 Reviews

4 people find this helpful

I've enjoyed the trilogy but I do think the first book has the strongest plot arc. This final installment takes about 300 pages to get going, the main problem being that Salander is pretty much incapacitated for the first half of the book and plays little part. This is a shame because she is the mos ... (continue)

I've enjoyed the trilogy but I do think the first book has the strongest plot arc. This final installment takes about 300 pages to get going, the main problem being that Salander is pretty much incapacitated for the first half of the book and plays little part. This is a shame because she is the most interesting and complex heroine in recent crime fiction history. Without her we are left with a fairly dry investigation into the Swedish secret service. The book does pick up however and the courtroom scenes at the end are compelling. It's obviously a shame that the author died without knowing his success and overall the series has been a triumph. However, this final book could have done with a bit more editing.

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Lunarossa said on May 6, 2010 | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

The third book of Stieg Larssen's trilogy is the longest, but definitely enjoyable and worth reading.
Trilogy is not the best word to describe the series since book 1 contains a full story that begins and ends while it is obvious that the idea of a sequel has sprung inn the authors mind only after h ... (continue)

The third book of Stieg Larssen's trilogy is the longest, but definitely enjoyable and worth reading.
Trilogy is not the best word to describe the series since book 1 contains a full story that begins and ends while it is obvious that the idea of a sequel has sprung inn the authors mind only after having completed the first tome. This is also the reason why I have been a little disappointed by book 2: besides lacking the enjoyable mysterious setting of the first book, it ends abruptly once the author seemed to think that it was getting too long although there's no conclusion. Thus only book 3 is a real sequel where the story which started in book 2 is continued and completed.
I'd say that book 3 is the second best of the series. It still carries the problem of having characters that are too artificially and too obviously ascribed either to the clan of the good or to the clan of the evil, and several events lack credibility. However, I was very impressed by Larsson's thorough knowledge of so many different topics (medicine, politics, structure of the Swedish government administration, law) or at least he presented these topics with surprising credibility.
Seeing the story started in book 2 coming to an end was also a reason to be satisfied by the third book.

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Alessandro Persia said on Jun 16, 2010 | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

史迪格拉森千禧系列第三部

I was going to wait for the Chinese version to come out in April, but I couldn't resist the temptation to buy it when I saw it in the bookstore in UK.
It is an utterly outstanding book. Although a great deal of the book describes the "Section", the most secretive and mysterious governmental body w ... (continue)

I was going to wait for the Chinese version to come out in April, but I couldn't resist the temptation to buy it when I saw it in the bookstore in UK.
It is an utterly outstanding book. Although a great deal of the book describes the "Section", the most secretive and mysterious governmental body which had everything to do with the conspiracy against Salander, it is still very fascinating to see each interested party --Salander (the victim and defendant in the criminal case), Blomkvist (the journalist who represents Millennium),the Section, Security Police, police investigator all came into place and each played an important role in the story. I was especially impressed by the part when Giannini, Salander's lawyer, did the cross-examination with Dr. Teleborian and I couldn't help but read this part 3 times. I almost cried when Salander was eventually released and acquitted of all the charges against her.
I very much enjoyed the Salander character that the author created: she is so tough that she never turns to anyone for help, not to mention all these years of injustice that she had been endured; she has a very intrigued personality that she is withdrawn and not good with relationship, and she doesn't care about the law; and she is so smart that she is one of the best hackers in the world.
If I were to complain about this book, it would be that although Salander is still the key person of the entire drama, and yet in this 3rd book Salander did not play a role as important as the previous ones.
I couldn't help but wonder what story did the author have in mind for the 4th and 5th book. It is such a shame that he didn't get the chance to finish the stories.

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Deborah said on Jan 30, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Best of the bunch...

Wow this was really, really good!! I thought the first book in the millenium trilogy was highly over rated but the second two really improve. Girl who kicked the hornets nest just improves on girl who played with fire. Even though its a hunk of a book it never once gets boring as it's written in suc ... (continue)

Wow this was really, really good!! I thought the first book in the millenium trilogy was highly over rated but the second two really improve. Girl who kicked the hornets nest just improves on girl who played with fire. Even though its a hunk of a book it never once gets boring as it's written in such a fast paced style you'll never find it tedious.
Salander as usual is the best thing in it, I loved seeing what she would come up with next. Blomkvist is slightly annoying and his romance with Figuerola seems to be abit pointless as if the author felt he should have some romance in the book so he shoved this in. I don't get the whole premise of him sleeping with up to three different women simultaneously and none of them minding all that much. But its a minor flaw as there isn't that much attention paid to his lovelife in the final book. Its as if even Larsson got bored with it!! Niedermann is such an evil character I love him!
All in all a brilliant book the only truely bad point may be that some people may be intimidated by the books size but please don't let that put you off it's well worth it!! Enjoy...

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Lauraolsthoorn said on Feb 25, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

I really liked it a lot but as I said in the review of the second book, that one and this one could have easily been one longer book since it's basically the same story.
Anyway everything about it was cool, the whole story and all the background Larsson described about the Swedish secret police can ... (continue)

I really liked it a lot but as I said in the review of the second book, that one and this one could have easily been one longer book since it's basically the same story.
Anyway everything about it was cool, the whole story and all the background Larsson described about the Swedish secret police can make people understand that everything we read is often sort of a lie.
Five stars cause it was addicting and fun to read!

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Harle56 said on Feb 19, 2012 | Add your feedback

Even though the finale of Larsson's wildly successful Millennium Trilogy still packs enough thrills to put most crime novels to shame, it is also easily the least compact, suspenseful and engaging in the series.
Its biggest problem is its sheer length, which, at nearly 750 pages, is simply way too ... (continue)

Even though the finale of Larsson's wildly successful Millennium Trilogy still packs enough thrills to put most crime novels to shame, it is also easily the least compact, suspenseful and engaging in the series.
Its biggest problem is its sheer length, which, at nearly 750 pages, is simply way too long for a story that is mostly occupied with tying up loose ends and giving closure to its two predecessors. The book's relative looseness and lack of suspense and also come from the fact that, unlike in the previous two, there's hardly any new mystery to solve in this one. We know from the get-go who the bad guys are and what they did. The whole book is basically just a detailed description of the political organization behind it all and an account of how the good guys finally connect the dots and reach a conclusion that the reader has known all along. That said, it's a testament to the formidable writing skills of Larsson that even with this little to work on, he managed to deliver a thriller that's better than most. His direct, objective, almost journalistic prose is sharp, concise and carries an edge that's cold to the touch and sharp enough to draw blood. His structure of individual scenes is as brilliantly heart-stopping as always, and his characterization of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, especially the subtle connection between them, is among the best I've read in crime fiction.
Overall, this book offers plenty to chew on and enjoy, its introduction of the Swedish secret police and its place in Sweden's history is fascinating to read, but the good stuff is spread out too thin over a killer volume and hence loses steam in many places.

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Tony Su said on Aug 29, 2011 | Add your feedback