Stieg Larsson’s addictive Millennium Trilogy just got better! The long-awaited and thrilling conclusion, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest (Knopf, $27.95), picks up where the cliffhanging Girl Who Played with Fire left us. Incapacitated, under arrest, and strapped to a hospital bed with no ability to defend herself, computer-hacker Lisbeth Salander must rely on the more orthodox methods of journalist Mikhail Blomkvist and her lawyer Annika Giannini as she battles for retribution against the sex-trafficker and crime boss Zalachenko, his thug Niederman, the corrupt psychiatrist Teleborian, and the secret society buried within the bureaucracy of the Swedish State Security Agency. I couldn’t put it down and barely slept for three nights straight!
John Shannon is an ex-cop who has been convicted of killing of a DEA officer. When he’s freed on a technicality, he returns to NYC hoping to find the person who framed him. But his homecoming is not a happy one. He’s arrested as soon as he’s released. Then his son is kidnapped. Not one to give himself over to a system that he feels has failed him, he sets out to find his son and tie the pieces together that landed him in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. This is a real page-turner introducing a character that you’ll want to read more about as the series unfolds.
While this is not a sequel to Paris Requiem, it features the Comtess de Landois, Marguerite from that book. She is called home to the family estate by her husband who tells her that he plans to adopt an abandoned child that he has found. He also wishes that she resume her wifely duties. The smart and worldly Marguerite has no intention of giving up the life she has enjoyed in Paris, so she sets out to find the child’s true parentage. She becomes embroiled in murder, kidnapping and incest. Where does the Catholic Church fit in all this? Marguerite is a strong intelligent woman with a good detective’s instincts. I hope there will be more books about her adventures.
