I read all three books in such a short amount of time I decided I needed to do something other than reading. There is no way I could have read so much without literally doing nothing else. I even to a break to read another book entirely between the second and third book.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo introduces the characters of Blomkvist and Salander and their inquisitive nature to uncover the truth. The book opens with Blomkvist’s indictment for libel concerning a financial empire he has written a condemning article about. A sabbatical he hopes will provide an answer to his struggling magazine takes him on an intriguing journey to solve a murder that happened many years ago.
The first book is a story on its own whereas the second two books are one story split into two. All of the action being in The Girl who Played with Fire and the tedious investigation taking up about 80% of The girl who kicked the hornets nest. If you can’t tell I struggled with the last book but I still had to find out how it all ended up.
The journalism aspect of the trilogy is extremely relevant today with the controversy surrounding the tabloids. Blomkvist and his reporters dig up information using questionable and perhaps illegal means. And the reporters aren’t the only spies. The government agencies and some law enforcers also have the means to acquire illegitimate information. However Larsson leads the reader to sympathise with the causes, these people need to be exposed. The public has a right to know.
And essentially the reporters decided we had a right to know the most intimate details of a “celebrity’s” life. I use the term loosely as not all targets were particularly famous, just the by product of a reality tv show ten seasons past its sell by date.
Here I think is where the reporters went wrong. There was no public interest in the stories they published about who slept with who, just mild curiosity. Now if they had uncovered a conspiracy or a terrorist plot they would have been hailed as heroes. But, unfortunately, sex sells better than mystery. Greed got the better of their shady morals and now they are being punished for it.
Perhaps in future they will print celeb focused drivel and write something interesting about the world.
