Lisbeth Salander returns

The late Swedish journalist/author Stieg Larsson was the man behind Lisbeth Salander — the undeniably twisted and talented female protagonist of his “Millennium” trilogy. The second part in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire, translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland, continues from where the first book left off — asocial heroine Salander once again back to her punch-throwing, expert computer hacking ways that she honed as a former security analyst in Stockholm, spinning yet another edge-of-the-seat crime thriller. Interestingly, Larsson’s father Erland Larsson, while receiving an award for his late son last year, revealed in an interview that the character of Salander seems to have been inspired by his son’s niece Terese, to whom the author had been very close.

The trilogy, however, was published only after the author’s death. The first of the series, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, released in 2005, was a huge international success. In 2008, in fact, Larsson was posthumously declared the second most best-selling author after Khaled Hosseini of The Kite Runner fame. Given that Larsson had reportedly received death threats as editor of the magazine Expo, there were, quite naturally, curious rumours when he suddenly passed away due to a massive heart attack in 2004 at the age of 50.

Amongst his writings, besides many years of constructive comment against racism and right-wing extremism, the “Millennium” trilogy is perhaps what crime fiction aficionados have relished the most. The last of the series awaits its English language launch later this year. As for the second book, the one under review, it’s tight and racy like its prequel. It remains, of course, strictly a recreational read — Larsson is known to have written the series for his own pleasure, often after a whole day’s work as editor-in-chief, making no attempt to seriously have it published till shortly before his death. However, his work is certainly one of the better ones in its genre, especially since it’s safely sleaze-free.

The single most riveting feature of the trilogy, undoubtedly, is its bi-sexual protagonist Salander, heavily prone to violence and extreme eccentricities — and the primary suspect in three murder cases in the country, high on the wanted list of the police force. It isn’t an unusual twist in the tale that being fiercely slick and smart, Salander isn’t one to be nabbed easily.

On the side, a reputed national magazine, Millennium, plays to a Tehelka-like moment — they are waiting to expose a meticulously researched sex-trafficking racket. Mikael Blomkvist, the publisher of the magazine, has an intense history with Salander (which makes up a chunk of the prequel), and she gets a sniff of the soon-to-be-published investigative project, while hacking into Blomkvist’s official files. It’s a neck-breaking, puzzling maze of a plot. The trouble is, there are too many characters to deal with every few pages. It’s a far-reaching plot, spanning several networks — publishing and media, national security and the state, social sciences and the mafia, the international human trafficking industry, and, of course, the police force.

Like most thrillers, there is much shock value that the book rides on, something that often seems too feeble an attempt to grab eyeballs. Is an ‘explosive’ expose by a magazine on the thriving sex-trafficking industry with international links really that shocking after all, for such an oft-reported subject? The emphasis laid on the ‘ground-breaking’ investigation taken on by journalists in the plot doesn’t seem terribly insightful or new, after all. On other occasions, however, the plot bounces back with sharp and unpredictable turns and sub-plots.

The character of Salander though, which begins promisingly, soon falls into a stereotype of its own. But die-hard Larsson fans would perhaps disagree, for she has been the topic of hot debate amongst readers and critics since the first book in the series was published, and many have considered her one of the most fascinating female protagonists in fiction writing in recent past. In that strain, it’s easy to imagine Larsson having secretly known while chalking out Salander’s character, that however tiresome, this unlikely female protagonist would effortlessly attract readers — and men in particular. Incidentally, a television series of the trilogy is underway, produced by Yellow Bird, the first two episodes of which released as a motion picture earlier this year.

The British publisher of Larsson’s books, Christopher MacLehose of Quercus Publishing, had, in an interview to Shots magazine, compared Salander to James Bond. “If the filmmakers get it right, Salander will leave James Bond in her wake. Salander is just so interesting and she’s much more intellectually stimulating than James Bond ever was,” he had said. Now that would be something.

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

Stieg Larsson
Penguin India
Pages: 649; Rs 299