You are surely a Renaissance Woman !!

I enjoyed this one very much. There is quite a lot of political intrigue in it, and I was left hoping things like this would never actually occur, but not at all sanguine about the chances of it being avoided.
It is such a pity that the author has died, as these books were of the highest quality.

I am just about to begin my first Larson: "The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo." Must these 3 works be read in order? I am intrigued by the little I read about the author's political afiliations. How did he die?

Mary, below is a short article from the 'Daily Telegraph' about Larsson. I haven't read any of his books (or seen the movie) but he is very popular over here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stieg Larsson

The books should definitely be read in order, Mary - the story of the main characters continues from book to book.

I've read them all - they are a cracking set of thrillers. A bit annoying with the techy name-dropping - do we really need to know that our heroine bought a 24" Apple Mac with 1G memory, 120G disk drive and DVD? - and some of the geekiness is a bit exaggerated - in the third book, there is a nice trick with a mobile phone that would NOT work - but great fun nonetheless.

Gosh, it was out here well before Christmas.

When I posted this, I probably should have clarified that I rarely buy books and I never, ever preorder them. This was quite a first for me. I find it is nice to have something to look forward to, as the first two were so very entertaining.

I agree Martin, the geekiness is a bit overdone. Also, the male protagonist's nickname is quite lost in the translation and becomes irritating as it is repeated over and over. But on the whole those are small potatoes.

Such a pity the author died so young. I think he would have got even better.

I have really enjoyed his first two books. Can't wait to read this one.

Fortunately it ties up a lot of loose ends which would never have been resolved otherwise, given the author's untimely death. Since it makes the three books a trilogy in themselves, I wonder if Steig Larsson planned to continue with the characters or if he had finished with them?

Colleen, in an article I read it was stated that he had said in an interview that he was planning a 10 book series, but I haven't been able to find any interview where he said that, so I can't confirm the truth in it.

There is also a rumour making the rounds that his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, is holding a fourth, finished manuscript, and his notes for the remaining books, because of a dispute over who inherits the rights to the books.

Here is a link that might be useful: More on Wikipedia, including a different version of the rumour

I loved both books and I'm halfway done through the third book. I really wish there were more.

I absoulutely loved this series ... burned through them in 2 weeks and am now at a loss on what to follow them up with.

As for the criticisms, yes, there could have been a bit better editing wrt the geek details, and I'm sure at least a hundred pages of 'review' could have been preened without losing any of the reader's understanding. But still one heck of a cracker of a series nonetheless.

I thought the first one started out slowly and I put it down for months; the second time I tried, I stuck with it, loved it and read all three; they are definitely to be read in order. It would be nice if the rumoured fourth book is eventually published.

In the library world, some of the read-alikes being suggested are Jo Nesbo's detective books. As I recall, the first two in his Harry Hole series have not been translated to English. I'm reading the third, The Redbreast but am finding it slow going. Another book, Three Seconds by Anders Roslund, is also a psychological crime thriller type of plot.