Salander is back!
I gave this 5 stars, not because it is among the best books I have ever read, but because I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even though I needed to do something else, and I needed a good night's sleep, I could not put this down until I finished it at 2:00am. The story never plodded for me. I've read Larsson's three books, and Lagercrantz's first Millenium book, so the people are mostly familiar.
In that last book, I felt that Lagercrantz had mangled Salander, turning her into more of a helpless victim, and Blomkvist also became more action-heroic, doing more to save the day than Salander. I was appalled by that, but I had otherwise enjoyed reading a story with those people in it. There were good plots and subplots in it, and it finished up well.
In this one, Salander was back, strong, vastly superior in intelligence, and Blomkvist was his old self, wrapped up in getting a story, but still concerned about Salander. I do think Lagercrantz went a little overboard with Salander at times. The little sidebars about Salander combining quantum mechanics with relativity theory didn't ring completely true, make much sense, or have any relevance to the story, but Salander was back in action, and ripping the internet open to get things done. She does do some amazing fighting, but she also gets taken down - she's not invulnerable, which is where her army of hackers, and Blomkvist come in. Lagercrantz also seems to have fleshed out some of the other female characters this time around, giving us more insight into them, and giving them more power due to their intelligence and strength, like Salander. The villians were therefore more credible and dangerous, and more of a challenge.
And really, those final chapters rocked. I like a good story, well told, and this is one of those.Read full review
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