Patented Larsson, meaning fast-paced enough to make those Jason Bourne films seem like Regency dramas.
Lisbeth Salander is in big trouble. Again.
In the third installment of the late journalist Larsson’s unpretty exposé of all that is rotten in Sweden (The Girl Who Played with Fire, 2009, etc.), Lisbeth meets her father, who, we learned a couple of books back, is not just her sire but also her mortal enemy. Pater shares her sentiments, so much so that, at the beginning of this trilogy-closer—though there’s talk that a fourth Salander novel has been found on Larsson’s laptop and is being squabbled over in lawyers’ offices—he’s apparently tried to exterminate the fruit of his loins. Being the resourceful lass that she is, Lisbeth rises from the grave to take her vengeance. Or, as longtime Larsson hero/alter ego Mikael Blomkvist tells us, she somehow managed to “get back to the farm and swung an axe into Zalachenko’s skull.” Adds Blomkvist, helpfully, “She can be a moody bitch.” So she can, but that’s the manner of avenging angels, and Lisbeth has lots of avenging to do. She also has lots of help. Blomkvist, a little mystified as always, runs on the sidelines along with girlfriend and publisher Erika Berger, while some favorite figures from the first installment, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, return to do their bit, among them fellow überhacker Plague, who still hasn’t taken a shower nearly 1,000 pages later. There are some new or hitherto minor players along for the ride, including another Zalachenko creation, a German very-bad-guy named Niedermann, who covers his tracks pretty well. Writes Larsson, “The problem with Niedermann was that he had no friends, no girlfriend and no listed cell phone, and he had never been in prison,” which makes life difficult even for a master tracker-downer such as Lisbeth—whom, unhappily, Niedermann is trying to do in as well. It’s a delicious mayhem, where no man is quite good and no rich person has the slightest chance of entering the kingdom of heaven. Oh, there are lots of very bad bikers, too.
Patented Larsson, meaning fast-paced enough to make those Jason Bourne films seem like Regency dramas.Pub Date: May 27, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-26999-7
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
