The Girl who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson

The second volume of Larsson’s Millennium trilogy opens with Lisbeth Salander spending her ill-gotten gains from volume one on a jet-setting, but low profile, lifestyle. Her absence from Sweden has bothered few, but two people with a keen interest in her whereabouts (for different reasons) are investigative journalist Mikail Blomkvist and lawyer Nils Bjurman. Salander had saved Blomkvist’s life, and just about ruined (with good reason) Bjurman’s.

Blomkvist is getting on with the day job, working with colleagues on an expose of human trafficking of sex workers that will compromise a lot of well-connected Swedes. Bjurman’s career is on the slide thanks to Salander’s ministrations and he’s channelling his time and efforts into finding and neutralising his nemesis.

Returning unnoticed to Stockholm, Salander uses her high level hacking skills to check out what both Blomkvist and Bjurman are up to. Both give her cause for concern. A name crops up that chills her to the bone and prompts he to intervene at just the wrong time. Three dead bodies later she is no longer unnoticed but identified and on the run, sought by Blomkvist, wanted by the police and hunted by the traffickers.

The action is thick, fast, fastidiously detailed (Salander’s tastes from pizza to underwear is lovingly revealed) and increasingly violent. Often tense, rarely dull, with an exciting climax, the book also reveals more (but still not all, one feels) of Salander’s back story.

All in all it is pretty good for the middle book of a trilogy; and nothing here to put the reader off reaching for that final volume.

I am the Messenger – Markus Zusak

Ed Kennedy, nineteen years old, is making his own way in the world; he just hasn’t got very far yet.

He’s got a job of sorts – as an under-age taxi driver - and a home in the shape of a shack he shares with the Doorman – a dog that’s old, smelly, and with a liking for coffee. When he’s not working, which is quite often, he hangs out with three friends – Marv, Ritchie and Audrey – and mainly plays cards.

Then his life of quiet monotony starts to get weird. First he helps foil a bungled bank robbery, getting his name in the local paper. Then an envelope arrives through his letter box, containing a playing card (the ace of diamonds) on which is written three addresses each with a time of day.

They mean nothing to him, but as a cab driver he knows where they are and, intrigued, he stakes them out around the specified times. It is clear (chillingly clear in one case) that at each a resident needs some help; and it is clear that someone has chosen him to do the helping.

Ed does what he can, and feels quiet satisfaction of a job well done, until another ace (clubs) arrives inscribed with a cryptic clue. This leads to three more folk needing help, and with two more suits available the labours of Hercules begin to look like a doddle.

From the simple concept Zusak crafts an engaging book. As well as dealing with the cards’ demands he has his own life to sort out; his love for Audrey is unrequited and his relationship with his mother dysfunctional. Only the Doorman understands him, and he only talks with his big brown eyes.

Like the author’s “Book Thief”, though aimed at (or suitable for) young adults, this is a book for all ages. The prose is simple but subtle, the issues straightforward but challenging, and the resolution of the aces’ demands while always likely are often less than obvious.

Uncertain to the end is the identity of the dealer.