Mondays Book Talk - The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Written by Ben Kesp 

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson 

This is the third instalment of the Millennium trilogy. Follow the heroine Lisbeth Salander as she lies in a critical condition in hospital with a bullet in the brain. She remains in the intensive care unit until she is well enough to be taken to Stockholm to stand trial. Salander is cut off from the outside world, however with the help of her friend Mikael Blomkvist and her doctor Anders Jonasson, with whom she has come to trust, they provide her with a Palm Tungsten T3. This gives Salander access to do what she does best. Hack into anyone’s hard drive she wants to. But this time she is doing it to prove her innocence and to gather information on the people and the Swedish Government that she has suffered injustice, abuse and violence from all her life. 

Larsson has provided a huge in depth knowledge of the workings of Sapo, the Swedish secret intelligence unit and has created a complex web of corruption leading right to the senior politicians within power. The trial at the end is a page turner as justice is handed out appropriately to the deserving people. After the trial Salander is no longer a guardian of the state and is free to live her life as a competent and independent legal citizen. 

An exciting and fast paced finish to this great trilogy having us again like in the other books wishing we were fighting on the side of Lisbeth Salander as she continues her crusades against the injustices handed out towards her and to others. For Lisbeth Salander, revenge is sweet.