Girl Who Played with Fire

Product Description The electrifying follow-up to the phenomenal best seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The fierce heart of this novel is Lisbeth Salander: the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who teamed up with crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This time, Lisbeth is implicated in a murder: her fingerprints found on the weapon used to kill two journalists the night before their explosive story about sex trafficking in Sweden was set to be published. Now, while Blomkvist—alone in his belief in her innocence—plunges into his own investigation of the slayings, Lisbeth is drawn into a hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past in an effort to settle with it once and for all. Amazon.com Review The girl with the dragon tattoo is back. Stieg Larsson's seething heroine, Lisbeth Salander, once again finds herself paired with journalist Mikael Blomkvist on the trail of a sinister criminal enterprise. Only this time, Lisbeth must return to the darkness of her own past (more specifically, an event coldly known as "All the Evil") if she is to stay one step ahead--and alive. The Girl Who Played with Fire is a break-out-in-a-cold-sweat thriller that crackles with stunning twists and dismisses any talk of a sophomore slump. Fans of Larsson's prior work will find even more to love here, and readers who do not find their hearts racing within the first five pages may want to confirm they still have a pulse. Expect healthy doses of murder, betrayal, and deceit, as well as enough espresso drinks to fuel downtown Seattle for months. -- Dave Callanan Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 1 Thursday, December 16 — Friday, December 17 Lisbeth Salander pulled her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose and squinted from beneath the brim of her sun hat. She saw the woman from room 32 come out of the hotel side entrance and walk to one of the green-and-white-striped chaises-longues beside the pool. Her gaze was fixed on the ground and her progress seemed unsteady. Salander had only seen her at a distance. She reckoned the woman was around thirty-five, but she looked as though she could be anything from twenty-five to fifty. She had shoulder-length brown hair, an oval face, and a body that was straight out of a mail-order catalogue for lingerie. She had a black bikini, sandals, and purple-tinted sunglasses. She spoke with a southern American accent. She dropped a yellow sun hat next to the chaise-longue and signalled to the bartender at Ella Carmichael’s bar. Salander put her book down on her lap and sipped her iced coffee before reaching for a pack of cigarettes. Without turning her head she shifted her gaze to the horizon. She could just see the Caribbean through a group of palm trees and the rhododendrons in front of the hotel. A yacht was on its way north towards St Lucia or Dominica. Further out, she could see the outline of a grey freighter heading south in the direction of Guyana. A breeze made the morning heat bearable, but she felt a drop of sweat trickling into her eyebrow. Salander did not care for sunbathing. She had spent her days as far as possible in shade, and even now was under the awning on the terrace. And yet she was as brown as a nut. She had on khaki shorts and a black top. She listened to the strange music from steel drums flowing out of the speakers at the bar. She could not tell the difference between Sven-Ingvars and Nick Cave, but steel drums fascinated her. It seemed hardly feasible that anyone could tune an oil barrel, and even less credible that the barrel could make music like nothing else in the world. She thought those sounds were like magic. She suddenly felt irritated and looked again at the woman, who had just been handed a glass of some orange-coloured drink. It was not Lisbeth Salander’s problem, but she could not comprehend why the woman stayed. For four nights, ev