The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest by Stieg LarssonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest is the third book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy. If you liked the other two and can keep reading through a slow beginning, I think you'll enjoy this one as well.
In the first half of the novel Larsson rehashes information from his other two books and spends too much time describing the Swedish legal system. Also, Larsson's most interesting character, Lisbeth Salander, is mostly ignored while she recovers from being shot in the head and buried alive in the last book. (A certain amount of suspension of disbelief is important for readers of any of the Millennium books.) The book only becomes interesting when the story includes Salander.
There are a couple of secondary plots that do not contribute much to the story. The first one has to do with a stalker and the second with an unethical business man. Those two story lines eventually help Erika Berger make an important decision, but that appears to be the only reason Larsson included them. He could have come up with a shorter and more relevant way to do that.
The short blurbs Larsson included on Amazon warriors seem superfluous and condescending to his strong female characters.
The book keeps going past the point when it should have ended. Larsson had a character from the second novel that he hadn't dealt with, so I suppose that's why he kept on writing. But once again he could have come up with a shorter way to resolve that issue.
But when the story reached the courtroom scene, I couldn't put the book down. I can't help but appreciate any novel that can keep me turning the pages as well as this one did.
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