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The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Larsson dreamt up hacker Lisbeth Salander to subsequently have her beaten, raped, mugged, shot, buried alive and heartbroken across several novels (This is the third, following The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire). We can only imagine what unpleasantries might have befallen Sweden’s favorite punk antihero had Larsson lived to complete his planned Millennium decalogy. Inevitably, some writer will, as the global phenomenon will likely carry on in a Robert Ludlum–like afterlife. And, frankly, it’s not a stretch to imagine that substitute author improving on the original trilogy.
In Hornet’s Nest, Salander’s brutal past expands into a national scandal of political conspiracy and shadowy subterfuge. Unfortunately, the titular protagonist spends most of the novel strapped to a bed. (Though there is a great bit of suspense when the hospital rooms her next to her mortal enemy.) After the Kill Billian climax of part two, it’s a bummer to end this tale with a talky courtroom debate.
A former journalist, Larsson hardly seems to take pleasure in the craft of writing. His perfunctory prose reads more like a police report than juicy procedural, as characters’ feelings and exposition is laid out in terse, unnatural dialogue. But he’s aware of it. Salander, recovering from brain surgery, taps her hard-boiled bio into a palm computer: “The matter-of-fact tone gave the text such a surreal touch that it sounded like an absurd fantasy.”
Larsson hasn’t peeled away layers of the onion so much as piled them on. Intended seeds for future novels remain narrative cul de sacs. Womanizing magazine publisher Mikael Blomkvist—“a hand grenade with the pin pulled”—courts a butch cop, while a mysterious figure harasses newspaper editor Erika Berger with e-mails reading “WHORE.” Man, forget the goodwill of Mamma Mia, the Swedish tourism board should start thinking damage control.
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