Millennium Trilogy - Stieg Larsson

I had these sitting on my bookshelf for months before I finally got into them - and then devoured the series in about a week.  My stepmother had given me all three with good recommendations, and I had tons of customers coming into my work speaking highly of the series. But I had started Girl with the Dragon Tattoo just after it was given to me and had a hard time getting into the story.

 After being told several times that 'it gets good' I picked them up just after the new year and found out why these books are so wildly popular. Featuring a broad, vibrant range of characters and tight plotlines, the books are great crime fiction that becomes impossible to put down.  Larsson has dreamed up a wonderful heroine in Lisbeth Salander, a character he obviously loved, and I think that anyone reading the books will also love her in their own way.

 A racing good read, notably the last two thirds of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and all of The Girl Who Played With Fire.  I was slightly unsatisfied after finishing Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest; in some ways it is like the last Lord of the Rings movie and has several different endings.  The writing also becomes somewhat fragmented and choppy, possibly the translation? It is hard to say.  I feel that perhaps Larsson was laying the groundwork for a fourth book, or had written an excerpt to be included with Hornet's Nest, and then the editors/publishers/whatever tacked it on to the end of the book for lack of something better to do with it.  Not necessarily a bad thing but it certainly dulls the impact a little.   

However, all in all I did love the books, will be keeping them, and certainly found Sweden a surprisingly exotic place to immerse myself in for a time.