The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Published July 2009 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Source: borrowed from my parents
Narrated by: Simon Vance

Publisher's Summary:
Mikael Blomkvist, crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government. But he has no idea just how explosive the story will be until, on the eve of publication, the two investigating reporters are murdered. And even more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander - the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who previously came to his aid, and who becomes the focus and fierce heart of the current situation. As Blomkvist, alone in his belief in Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation of the slayings, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past in an effort to settle with it once and for all.


My Thoughts:
Okay, you all were right. Simon Vance is amazing. Except...he really cannot do a convincing Swedish accent, particularly a Swedish woman. Shouldn't even have tried. Lisbeth Salander became a Cockney girl, and not a particularly tough one.

Why, yes, this is the bed Lisbeth bought

If that were the worst thing to be said about this book, it would be a minor quibble I could have gotten over. It isn't. I have no idea where Stieg Larsson's editor was when this book was being published. Perhaps they were, like Dickens, both being paid by the word. One could actually furnish their apartment with exactly the same furniture that Lisbeth bought from Ikea, right down to the lamps and bedding. Every shop anyone went into is named, every kind of food Lisbeth ate. And don't even get me started on the street names. I do believe I could navigate through Stockholm and surrounding environs.

It's a shame to burden the story with all of this nonsense. It's a complicated story and readers need to be able to stay focused. There are a lot of names and relationships to remember. If I'd been reading, rather than listening, I might well have made notes as I started. Eventually, I got it all straight in my head and was able to go along for the ride. It really is a great ride, if you can get over the fact that it would appear a good half of the men in Sweden are chauvinist pigs. Because Lisbeth Salander is just so damn interesting.

I'd be ready to jump right into the next book if I could just get over the idea that it's bound to be three discs longer than it should be.