The Girl who Played With a Little More than Fire

I finally finished the second book of Stieg Larsson’s series and I will say that all my expectations were fulfilled. Rarely have a been bored with his first two books and the story just keeps getting more and more layers too. It’s like as soon as you feel like you know Lizbeth Slander, you find out that there’s something else she’s been hiding. Even if most of her secrets are revealed, they’re are many other characters that try to hide things. There is so much more to Larsson’s characters then I could have ever dreamed of.

SPOILERS

I did not find it surprising that Slander didn’t kill Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson. However, for a while I thought she might have killed Nils Bjurman -maybe there was something he did that the book hadn’t revealed yet. I also thought Zala was the one the murdered Dag and Mia, even though he was old, they were killed by gun so it seemed plausible. Yet I was wrong again, Larsson added another twist to the story.

Only in certain parts of the book did I think that Slander knew something about Zala that no else did. The first time I thought she knew something about him was when she stared at his name for a long time after reading Svennson’s research on him for the first time. The second time was when she finally said his first and last name to Mia and Dag. However, never once did I come to the conclusion that Zala might be related to her. Now, it makes so much more sense. I should have seen it coming, in the first book I found out she was into older men and she had serious trust issues. Isn’t that a sign of daddy issues? I read the first book a while back and I can’t remember if it revealed why her mom was in the hospital, but that might have been another clue that he Father was a bad person.

I also should have guessed that Ronald was related to her too -especially after finding out that Zala was her Father. I think a lot of gangs recurte family members in reality which makes sense because they’re usually easier to trust since you’ve known them for so long and you learn their strengths and weaknesses over time.

I wished Slander would have trusted Blomkvist I little more, but in the second book it was almost like they were total strangers again. Slander repeatedly thought that Blomkvist was a good guy and he owes her a lot for saving his life and he is grateful that she did. Why could he only truly help her at the last possible moment?

I can still see her reasoning though, Blomkvist had plenty of connections with the law. His sister would probably help her get through court -but Zala had connections with the law too. Not to mentions plenty of people -Faste especially- wanted to kill her on the spot.

I hope in the next book Slander is able to punish all the people who hurt her. However, this isn’t a superhero story. Slander, no matter how independent she is, can’t take them all down on her own. I hope she looks at her allies as assets more often and I hope she comes across some of her other siblings. If they’ve met their monster of a Father they might want to get back and him too.

They also might know things about her family that she doesn’t.