The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson

The third and final book in the trilogy starts off with Lisbeth Salander at a hospital, unconscious with a bullet lodged in her brain. Her psychopathic father lies two doors down with an axe wound to his head. The craziness has begun.

I had heard some rumblings about this book, mainly that there were too many secondary characters and too much focus on them. Aside from one especially long background explanation of one of the Sapo men, I found the side story of Erika Berger and the insight into Monica Figuerola to be entertaining and I thought they added a lot to Larsson's exploration of "men who hate women".

The book, like it's predecessors was long at 563 pages for a hardcover book, but the length was something I loved because it meant just that much more time I would get to spend in Lisbeth's world. I finished the book satisfied, but with a heavy heart knowing that this was the last thing Larsson had ever wrote. There are talks of a partial fourth manuscript on his girlfriend's computer, but now I've heard there is a big dispute over his estate and the contents of this manuscript will probably take years to make it into the public eye. The whole thing is tragic, and so eerily like one of his books that it makes you wonder.

Was it worth the read?

Yes. Lisbeth's long list of enemies finally get their comeuppance, and they get it in a meticulously thought out, hit em' where it hurts kind of way. It's gratifying to the extreme, with a great court scene at the end. Long live Lisbeth!