The stunning third and final novel in Stieg Larsson’s internationally best-selling trilogy
Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.
Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back.
编辑推荐
Best Books of the Month, May 2010 As the finale to Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy,
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is not content to merely match the adrenaline-charged pace that made international bestsellers out of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire. Instead, it roars with an explosive storyline that blows the doors off the series and announces that the very best has been saved for last.A familiar evil lies in wait for Lisbeth Salander, but this time, she must do more than confront the miscreants of her past; she must destroy them.Much to her chagrin, survival requires her to place a great deal of faith in journalist Mikael Blomkvist and trust his judgment when the stakes are highest.To reveal more of the plot would be criminal, as Larsson's mastery of the unexpected is why millions have fallen hard for his work.But rest assured that the odds are again stacked, the challenges personal, and the action fraught with neck-snapping revelations in this snarling conclusion to a thrilling triad. This closing chapter to The Girl's pursuit of justice is guaranteed to leave readers both satisfied and saddened once the final page has been turned.--Dave Callanan
专业书评
From Publishers Weekly
The exhilarating conclusion to bestseller Larsson's Millennium trilogy (after
The Girl Who Played with Fire) finds Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant computer hacker who was shot in the head in the final pages of
Fire, alive, though still the prime suspect in three murders in Stockholm. While she convalesces under armed guard, journalist Mikael Blomkvist works to unravel the decades-old coverup surrounding the man who shot Salander: her father, Alexander Zalachenko, a Soviet intelligence defector and longtime secret asset to Spo, Sweden's security police. Estranged throughout
Fire, Blomkvist and Salander communicate primarily online, but their lack of physical interaction in no way diminishes the intensity of their unconventional relationship. Though Larsson (19542004) tends toward narrative excess, his was an undeniably powerful voice in crime fiction that will be sorely missed.
500,000 first printing. (May)
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* When we last saw Lisbeth Salander, she was teetering between life and death. And who wouldn’t be after having been shot by her father and buried alive by her brother? Salander was rescued, at the end of The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009), by journalist Mikael Blomkvist. She’s now in a Swedish hospital, slowly mending and awaiting trial for three murders she didn’t commit. Meanwhile, her father, a former Soviet spy, is down the hall, recovering from the injuries he sustained when Lisbeth stuck an ax in his head. Blomkvist, Salander’s loyal friend, sets out to prove her innocence, but to do so he must expose a decades-old conspiracy within the Swedish secret service that has resulted in, among other travesties, a lifetime of abuse heaped upon Salander, whose very life threatens to expose the deadly charade. The late Larsson (this third novel in his Millennium Trilogy is his final book) can be accused of heaping too much plot between two covers—in addition to the Salander story, there is an elaborate subplot involving Blomkvist’s lover, Erica, and her travails as the first female editor of a major Stockholm newspaper—but he is remarkably agile at keeping multiple balls in the air. But it wouldn’t really matter if he weren’t a skilled craftsman because Salander is such a bravura heroine—steel will and piercing intelligence veiling a heartbreaking vulnerability—that we’d willingly follow her through any bramble bush of a plot. She spends more than half of this novel in a hospital bed, but orchestrating the action from her Palm computer, she dominates the stage like Lear. There are few characters as formidable as Lisbeth Salander in contemporary fiction of any kind. She will be sorely missed. --Bill Ott
媒体推荐
A thoroughly gripping read . . . Lisbeth Salander, Stieg Larssons fierce pixie of a heroine, is one of the most original characters in a thriller to come along in a whilea gamin, Audrey Hepburn look-alike but with tattoos and piercings, the take-no-prisoners attitude of Lara Croft and the cool, unsentimental intellect of Mr. Spock . . . Owes less to the Silence of the Lambs horror genre than to something by John le Carr.
Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
The literary equivalent of a caffeine rush . . . Larsson was one of those rare writers who could keep you up until 3 a.m. and then make you want to rush home the next night to do it again . . . Larsson is something like John Grisham [but] Larsson held an extra ace: the creation of Salander.
Newsweek
Its over! And I feel the same sense of pleasure and loss that I did when I watched the finale of The Sopranos and the last episodes of Battlestar Galactica . . . Salander is, I promise, someone you will never forget . . . Anyone who enjoys grounding their imaginations in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of exciting pages about the way we live now ought to take advantage of this trilogy.
Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune
"Larsson has produced a coup de foudre, a novel that is complex, satisfying, clever, moral . . . This is a grown-up novel for grown-up readers, who want something more than a quick fix and a car chase. And it's why the Millennium trilogy is rightly a publishing phenomenon all over the world."
Guardian
A heart-stopping showdown showcases one of crime fictions most unforgettable charactersand cements Larssons rep as one of its most passionate and original voices.
People
Confirms Larsson as one of the great talents of contemporary crime fiction.
Sunday Times (UK)
Exhilarating . . . Larssons was an undeniably powerful voice in crime fiction that will be sorely missed.
Publishers Weekly
Fast-paced enough to make those Jason Bourne films seem like Regency dramas.
Kirkus Reviews
Larssons vivid characters, the depth of the detail across the three books, the powerfully imaginative plot, and the sheer verve of the writing make the trilogy a masterpiece of its genre.
The Economist
There are few characters as formidable as Lisbeth Salander in contemporary fiction of any kind . . . She dominates the stage like Lear . . . She will be sorely missed.
Booklist
Larssons work is original, inventive, shocking, disturbing, and challenging . . . His novels have brought a much needed freshness into the world of crime fiction.
Times (UK)
"Fans will not be disappointed: this is another roller-coaster ride that keeps you reading far too late into the night."
Evening Standard
作者简介
Stieg Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine
Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic, right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.
文摘
chapter 1
Friday, April 8
Dr. Jonasson was woken by a nurse five minutes before the helicopter was expected to land. It was just before 1:30 in the morning.
"What?" he said, confused.
"Rescue Service helicopter coming in. Two patients. An injured man and a younger woman. The woman has a gunshot wound."
"All right," Jonasson said wearily.
Although he had slept for only half an hour, he felt groggy. He was on the night shift in the ER at Sahlgrenska hospital in Gteborg. It had been a strenuous evening.
By 12:30 the steady flow of emergency cases had eased off. He had made a round to check on the state of his patients and then gone back to the staff bedroom to try to rest for a while. He was on duty until 6:00, and seldom got the chance to sleep even if no emergency patients came in. But this time he had fallen asleep almost as soon as he turned out the light.
Jonasson saw lightning out over the sea. He knew that the helicopter was coming in the nick of time. All of a sudden a heavy downpour lashed at the window. The storm had moved in over Gteborg.
He heard the sound of the chopper and watched as it banked through the storm squalls down towards the helipad. For a second he held his breath when the pilot seemed to have difficulty controlling the aircraft. Then it vanished from his field of vision and he heard the engine slowing to land. He took a hasty swallow of his tea and set down the cup.
Jonasson met the emergency team in the admissions area. The other doctor on duty took on the first patient who was wheeled in-an elderly man with his head bandaged, apparently with a serious wound to the face. Jonasson was left with the second patient, the woman who had been shot. He did a quick visual examination: it looked like she was a teenager, very dirty and bloody, and severely wounded. He lifted the blanket that the Rescue Service had wrapped around her body and saw that the wounds to her hip and shoulder were bandaged with duct tape, which he considered a pretty clever idea. The tape kept bacteria out and blood in. One bullet had entered her hip and gone straight through the muscle tissue. He gently raised her shoulder and located the entry wound in her back. There was no exit wound: the round was still inside her shoulder. He hoped it had not penetrated her lung, and since he did not see any blood in the woman's mouth he concluded that probably it had not.
"Radiology," he told the nurse in attendance. That was all he needed to say.
Then he cut away the bandage that the emergency team had wrapped around her skull. He froze when he saw another entry wound. The woman had been shot in the head, and there was no exit wound there either.
Jonasson paused for a second, looking down at the girl. He felt dejected. He often described his job as being like that of a goalkeeper. Every day people came to his place of work in
