The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest – Stieg Larsson

This is the third book in Larsson’s Millennium trilogy and picks up exactly where volume two ended, which is just as well as “Played with Fire” left a lot of loose ends not to mention badly damaged bodies.

There is less mayhem here, more intrigue as several agencies try to unravel the mystery that is Lisbeth Salander.  A couple of police forces, two factions within the Swedish state security organisation, a corrupt psychologist and of course Millennium magazine’s Mikael Blomkvist after a good story, are variously trying to get her locked up, shut up, eliminated or rescued from herself. Meanwhile Salander lies in hospital under guard with only her lawyer allowed to visit; not that that stops the hacker extraordinary from getting involved remotely once she gets illicit access to the internet.

It gets complicated.  But at least the timeline is simple and events race along so it reads less than the 750 pages.  In truth it could lose two hundred pages if Larsson cut down on the spurious detail, particularly geographic; those familiar with Stockholm may find the street level information interesting, but those not can either ignore it or spend time with the maps provided.  There is also a side story concerning Blomkvist’s lover Erika Berger that could be omitted without any loss.

As usual, Blomkvist gets his end away and runs rings round everyone, but Lisbeth Salander remains the star turn in a typically violent finale.

And finale it will be for me.  Although the series has been continued after Stieg Larsson’s death by David Lagercrantz I have had my fill thank you very much.

Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood

After a long career, painter Elaine Risley is back in Toronto where a gallery is mounting a retrospective of her work.  Her return prompts memories of her childhood and youth spent in the city.  With unconventional parents and a brilliant older brother her upbringing left her ill-prepared for the schoolyard, neither able to form friendships with the other girls nor deal with their spite and cruelties.

It seems she’s been dealing with it ever since – in her art and in her relationships with the men in her life, which both seem to attract the opprobrium of other women.

As the past and present intertwine a personal and vivid picture of life in post-war and baby-boom Canada emerges, illuminated both by the clarity of youth and the wisdom, or is it world-weary cynicism, of age.

Even filtered through Elaine Risley’s off-kilter narration, Margaret Atwood’s prose flows beautifully, and as ever her articulation of the human condition hits the mark.