thegirl All shiny silver and crisp library cellophane, this tasty treat sat on my coffee table for a week before I had time to crack it open. It felt like we English-speakers had to wait a really long time for this final installment in the late Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series. I knew once I started reading, I might be tempted to consume it all in one sitting, like a box of chocolates. Like a box of sweet, sweet lutfisk-flavored chocolates.

I love the cool exoticism of the late Stieg Larsson’s books—The Girl Who Played With Fire before this one, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo before that one. I don’t know jack about Sweden, but reading Larsson gives me an uncontrollable urge to shop at Ikea. I love the umlauts and the accents and whatever that little circle hat over the letter “a” is called.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Deckle Edge) has about a million characters, all apparently named for Ikea bookshelves and end tables. Here’s a sampling: Blomkvist, Berger, Bodin, Borgsjö, Bjurman, Edklinth, Ekström, Malm, Modig, Märtensson, Nyström, and Wadensjöö. Don’t worry about keeping them all straight; you can plow through like I did, sorting them out in context (good cop, bad cop, evil secret government agent, crazy sadist, genius anarchist, heroic journalist).

Following the story is not really the point. I would rather follow the characters around as they are forever taking the tunnelbana or meeting on trains on their way to places called Gosseberger, Södertälje, and Ǻs. Every two minutes they need more coffee (who doesn’t) and a sandwich. Oftentimes on the train.

When they’re not on the train, the heroes generally keep busy with investigative journalism, casual sex, hacking the net, and, of course, fighting for truth, justice, and Swedish Democracy. Ah, the rational Swedes.

Honestly, I don’t really care what kinds of secret government plots are being exposed in the storyline. I’m more intrigued by the techno-geeky product placement. Blomkvist is constantly yakking on his Ericsson T10, or firing up his iBook, or smuggling Salander’s Palm Tungsten T3 into the closed ward of the hospital—when what she really needs is her PowerBook with the real keyboard and the 17-inch screen, but will meanwhile use said Palm Tungsten T3 to ping Blomquist’s ICQ, access Teleborian’s hard drive, read messages on the Yahoo Group [Idiotic_Table] and contact Plague at Hacker Republic for some in-depth cyber-spying. I know all this gear is technologically past its sell-by date, but the constant references to gadgets make me really, really want them. And give me a side of those superhuman hacking skills while you’re at it.

Meanwhile, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest may not be the end of the line for Larsson—never mind the fatal heart attack he suffered in 2004, before any of the Millennium books were ever published.

How about this for a plot:

Swedish anti-fascist magazine editor delivers manuscripts for three novels, dies. Novels are published and become worldwide bestsellers. Movies are made. E-mails surface with details about a fourth novel. Family and partner of author are embroiled in legal battle over rights to author’s laptop…

I would totally read that.