The Redeemer

Seeking for an author to fill the Steig Larsson-shaped hole in my library, on the shelf marked "grim, yet gripping, Northern European detective thrillers", I happened upon Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, whose latest novel The Snowman is being helpfully touted as "the new Larsson". Before I got to that though, someone recommended I first read Nesbo's earlier book starring policeman Harry Hole, The Redeemer. As it turns out, if I wanted to be a completist I should have gone back even further and started with Hole's earlier adventures The Redbreast and The Devil's Star (plot elements from which are referenced here) but fortunately it's quite possible to read any of Nesbo's novels as a self-contained mystery (something that isn't really true of the second and certainly the third Lisbeth Salander books).

The Redeemer is a Serbian contract killer hired to murder a prominent member of Salvation Army in Oslo... who ends up shooting the wrong man. Despite the fact that the police are closing in, the Redeemer is determined to put right his mistake... but who hired him in the first place? Harry Hole's investigation is hampered by a new boss, unreliable witnesses, unexpected tragedy... and the fact that the killer has a rare condition known as hyperelasticity that renders him virtually unrecognisable - he's an actual rubber faced criminal. (Talk about stretching credibility!)

Although a far more traditional thriller writer than Larsson, Nesbo succeeds in many areas where Larsson showed weakness, particularly the action sequences. This novel has a movie script sense of visual excitement that was missing from the Dragon Tattoo books, and it's here that Nesbo scores. On the other hand, his characters aren't anywhere near as compelling as Larsson's and there isn't his fascinatingly anal attention to detail or skill at making everyday mundane routine so gripping. It's wrong to compare the two writers - hell, they're not even the same nationality. But shorthand comparisons shift books, and I'm sure Nesbo isn't complaining about "the Larsson effect".

The Redeemer is an exciting and unpredictable thriller - I'm looking forward to reading more Harry Hole adventures soon.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

And so I reach the end of the Millennium Trilogy, and mourn the untimely passing of its author, Stiegg Larsson, before he could continue the adventures of Lisbeth Salander any further.

The third and final tale of the girl with the dragon tattoo is a curious one. As with other famous trilogies, it's much more closely connected to its predecessor than the second episode was to the first (think Empire / Jedi), working as a direct continuation to the cliffhanger ending of the previous novel. It also makes the somewhat ridiculous climax of The Girl Who Played With Fire slightly less so, as Lisbeth spends the majority of this book in hospital recovering from the dramatic injuries she sustained during the showdown with her father.

Not only is Lisbeth hospitalised, she's also under arrest and facing trial for attempted murder (among other charges), so the plot this time is dedicated almost entirely to Mikael Blomkvist's quest to clear her name. There's a satisfying subplot in which Lisbeth (despite her confinement) investigates a stalker who's harrassing Blomkvist's former partner Erica Berger, but other than that the eponymous heroine takes a passive role while the rest of the cast carry the action.

Action is still the weakest area of Larsson's writing though, the investigative stuff proving far more exciting, the history of Sweden's secret police far more engrossing, and the real dramatic climax takes place with Lisbeth's day in court... a final violent showdown with her brother, awol for most of the novel, feels tacked on and unnecessary. It'll no doubt work better in the movie which will sadly have to jettison much of the political intrigue, but was Larsson really writing with an adaptation in mind?

Minor gripes aside, the Millennium trilogy remains one of the most exciting series of thrillers I've read in recent years, well deserving the publishing phenomenon status it's achieved. I have gorged myself on these books, and would have happily done so for many years to come.

Rest In Peace, Stieg Larsson. You deserve it.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The second of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy is just as page-turnery and unputdownable as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, though it does stretch credibility to breaking point - or, more appropriately, shoot credibility in the brain then bury it in a shallow grave in the woods.

Unlike the previous book, the plot this time lands squarely on the doorstep of our titular, angry-goth-feminist-icon, heroine Lisbeth Salander when she's accused of murdering two reporters and her sleazy probation officer in a night of kill-crazy violence. Fortunately she has an excellent hiding place, plus the help of a veritable phone book of crack investigators - chiefly Millennium's publisher / Lisbeth's onetime lover Mikael Blomkvist. Also helping prove her innocence are her former employer, original probation office, boxing coach and Chinese girlfriend... even the police have Lisbeth sympathizers in their ranks, which is useful because the evidence against her is pretty condemning.

Oh, and there's also a secondary plotline about sex trafficking which seems to point towards some frightening figures from Lisbeth's past... who may or may not be untouchable in the eyes of the law.

Larsson's strength lies in his intricate plotting and eye for absorbing detail. He has the ability to write a chapter about nothing more than Lisbeth shopping for groceries or buying furniture from Ikea and make it as riveting as any murder investigation. His weakness is action sequences. Just as the showdown with Dragon Tattoo's serial killer felt slightly forced, the dramatic climax here will raise more than an eyebrow. It's melodrama and manipulation - undeniably thrilling, yet disappointing when compared to the rest of the book. That said, it's certainly not enough to discourage me from reading part 3, or cursing the cruel gods of fate who stole Larsson for us before he could write any more.

Ironically, the elements that work best in Larsson's books are the very things that don't transfer well to the cinema screen. Much of Lisbeth's investigative work involves hacking into secret computer files, while Blomkvist spends hours digging through dusty old reports in newspaper morgues. Exciting as that may be on the page, you'd be falling asleep in the cinema. So the Swedish filmmakers in charge of adapting Lisbeth's adventures to the big screen are faced with the task of not only streamlining Larsson's labyrinthine plot, but also ramping up the action. In doing so they sadly lose much of what makes the story work and render the plot bizarrely unintelligible for anyone who's not read the book. The first half of the novel is stripped down into the first 20 minutes of the movie and the large supporting cast is barely sketched compared to the fingerprint detail Larsson gives them on the page. What saves the second film - just, though not as much as the first one - is the central performances. Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist bring Lisbeth and Blomkvist to life with a grubby realism that Hollywood just won't be able to match. While I'm excited to see David Fincher helming the US remakes (though I breathed a sigh of relief when the laughable rumour of Scarlett Johansson as Lisbeth proved false) and I'm hoping he can transmit more of what makes Larsson's novels so gripping to the screen, you can bet your bottom dollar there'll be no flabby nude scenes or grimy Swedish streets on show... and somehow, that just won't be the same.