Book Review: "The Girl who Played With Fire" by Stieg Larsson

Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are back in the follow-up to "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo".  In this 2nd of the Millenium Trilogy, we find out much more about Lisbeth's life, both current and past, especially the horrible event of her childhood that she refers to as 'all the evil', and how/why as a child she was institutionalized and declared incompetent.  In this story,  she and Mikael don't have a lot of direct contact, but they are both investigating how Lisbeth came to be the prime suspect in 3 murders.  4 separate investigations are taking place: the police, her former employer Amansky, Mikael and her own.   The investigations lead to her past, which she must once again confront in the horrible conclusion.   

I like the characters, especially Lisbeth, Mikael and Lisbeth's friend Miriam Wu.   The characters are used very effectively to tell the story.  The 4 investigations are woven together very nicely, and Larsson does a particularly good job of building suspense as they progress, using the events of Lisbeth's past to explain the reasons for the 3 murders.  And once again, someone is drinking coffee in almost every scene  :)

To be honest, there are plenty of content warnings.  There are a couple of sex scenes, but no graphic details.  There are several scenes of violence, including a huge man who has no problem beating up a woman.  There is objectionable language, including the F word used several times.  It is clearly adults-only.