The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

The final book in this complex and intriguing thriller trilogy and marvelously, standards are maintained. The translator is to be congratulated on an excellent job.

Normally I would whisk through to the end to find out what happens but for the first time in a long time I deliberately read slowly savouring each precisely crafted turn in the plot.

So why this so good ? Tension is maintained throughout, not just in the storyline (for example with Salander lying helpless in hospital) but in the structure, with the first person accounts giving varying viewpoints. Scenes are easily envisaged but the descriptive detail is not intrusive. New complex characters are delicately inserted as a natural progression in the developing story, rather than a lazy way of tying up loose ends.
The ending is satisfying, not quick and easy nor always predictable and there is a quite chilling surprise, at least for the foreign reader, in the notes at the end (so don't read it first !).

If the author was still writing would there have been further tales ? One big thing not explained is the reason for the existence of Salander's twin sister Camilla. Also there are plenty of lead ins for further, perhaps less personal, Salander crusades - the Hacker Republic, Blomkvist and Millennium or the police. We will never know, and that's a loss for the literary world.