I've been side-tracked from my blogging for the last couple of weeks as I've been busy with office work, accounting, bookkeeping, filing and such for my husband's business.
And then I spent my evenings reading this book:
This is the last book in the Millennium Trilogy by Swedish journalist and author Stieg Larsson. He is the author who died at the age of 50, after submitting the trilogy to his publisher.
The English titles of the books are: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.
I won't review the books or recommend them here -- there are readers' reviews available on amazon.com and the first two books were reviewed in newspapers and magazines when first released in this country, where they both hit the best-seller lists. I just feel compelled to say a few words about the Girl herself.
These well-written and interesting books cover a wide range of subjects from crime against women, Nazis and neo-Nazis in Sweden, financial crimes, the Internet, the Swedish Secret Police, running a crusading magazine, and much, much more. But the books truly come alive once the Girl of the titles, Lisbeth Salander, the most fascinating heroine to ever appear in any crime fiction I've ever read, makes her entry on a page.
Lisbeth is an astonishing heroine for our times, totally outside any middle class box and endowed with gifts that will make your jaw drop. She comes from a terrible and dysfunctional family, she spent time in a mental institution, she has many tattoos, a photographic memory, is a computer genius who can hack into any computer anywhere, dresses Goth, rides a motorbike, and well, you get the picture: there is nothing middle class about Lisbeth Salander.
Little by little you get to know her as you read the three books. The author did a wonderful job of sharing a bit of her story here and another bit there, all the while telling several other stories, but never losing the thread. It all comes together in this final book and the ending is just about the only ending possible for Lisbeth and the Millennium Trilogy.
Lisbeth Salander may not be for everyone, but I will never forget her and doubt I will ever meet another heroine, in another book, that I will so admire in spite of both her and myself.
I read somewhere that the author had planned a total of ten books. How I wish for just a few more…..
Now back to Superbowl Sunday with husband and dogs. Go Saints!!! Oh, yes, my husband and his very large family all come from New Orleans -- and I can just imagine how excited they all must be in New Orleans right now. Even I am looking forward to this game!
