Larsson, Stieg: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

The third and final part of the Millenium trilogy is a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment. Let me deal with the latter
first. The opening chapters of Salander's time in hospital and the gathering of the forces against her seem to provide rather
more information than is necessary and the need for a strong editor is shown by the repitition of the emails between her and
Blomkvist as they are given both when she sends them and later when he reads them, an unnecessary duplication. The
main disappointment is the inclusion of the chapters dealing with Erika Berger's change of employment and her return which
add nothing at all to the plot line. Allowing that the elaboration of the inner machinations of the Swedish Secret Service had
to be as detailed as they were and accepting the coincidences, the book as a whole does provide a satisfactory conclusion to
the events which began several hundred pages earlier with Blomkvist hiring Salander. I must admit that after the number of
novels with courtroom scenes in the USA, the informal Swedish approach took me aback - the proceedings were more akin to
a round table discussion, albeit a very serious one, at times though they were engrossing.
The trilogy as a whole is very good while having faults which bring it down somewhat from the very best