Millenium Series - Stieg Larsson

This very popular fiction series, are the translated works of Stieg Larsson, published posthumously. The orginial books were in Swedish. It comprises of three hefty books – The girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Honestly, I would have switched the names of the 2^nd and 3^rd book. All the playing with the hornet’s nest actually happens in the second book if you ask me.

The books tell about a complicated journey of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. Blokvist is an investigative journalist at Millenium, a monthly known for its ruthless scrutiny of the sundry things in the Swedish economy. Lisbeth Salander on the other hand is social retard, and a certified punk. At the outset, interesting characters to tie up as lead protagonists. It builds up into a rather fantastic series of novels, where the greatness is not really in the epic story arc, or brilliant characters, but in the narration itself which really respects a readers intellect and does not feed her unnecessary poetic flourishes, or silly twists and suspense, or u-turns of character traits, and the other sundry tools that writers resort to for “interesting” writing.

The first book – The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo – is a straightforward who-dun-it. While it’s a complete book in itself, I strongly suggest that you do not read only this book and stop. There is a reason I am reviewing the series and not individual books. In the first book, we just about start knowing Mikael, Lisbeth, and other lead characters in the novel. Whether it’s the translation or the style of Larsson himself, we will never know, but the writing is extremely crisp, purposeful and all about the story. As a reader, that’s what I like. The story itself is logical with no plot-holes that I could identify, and no meaningless twist ending. The book, in short, gets the job done. We are introduced to the case where a young girl, Harriet Vagner, has gone missing some 40 years ago. Her grandfather has been trying to locate her, trying to find out if she is dead or alive for all this while. As a last ditch effort, he hires Mikael to do some extra investigation. Get an outsider’s opinion, so to speak. Of course the case gets solved. One would imagine that the author would have a tough time stringing together a reasonably realistic story where a 40 year old case which wasn’t solved by the police force and a very rich man with numerous resources happens to be solved by, of all people, a journalist. Let me allay those concerns. The story is extremely sensible. The threads which lead to Mikael solving the case, and which were earlier missed by everyone else are believable and rational. There’s the matter of Lisbeth Salander as well. She, while classified as socially inept, is good at “researching”. She is good with computers, and lands up alongside Blomkvist on the Harriet Wagner case. For how central she is in the series, she plays, at best, a peripheral role in the first book. In fact the first “story” is not really related much to the second and third books apart from the fact that we get to understand the Blomkvist-Salander association. Consider the first book as a huge backstory to the second and third books, while being a story in itself. Apart from that, Lisbeth’s own backstory is dwelt in significant detail in the first book. It doesn’t have much to do with what’s happening in the first book. As a reader, you will be a little flummoxed with all the details. All that turns out to be central in the 2^nd and 3^rd books. Lisbeth Salander is shown to be declared as “socially incompetent” and is therefore mandatorily supposed to have a state appointed “Guardian” who is responsible for her life decisions. Salander had a “good” Guardian, one who understood the underlying reasons for her rebellious streak and knew how to manage it. But he has a stroke and is replaced with a guardian who prefers raping his charges instead of guarding them. He discovers, as do we the readers, Salander is not the one to be messed with. On to the next book.

The Girl Who Played With Fire – Here the proverbial plot thickens. A whole lot of unrelated things – Girl trafficking, biker clubs, national security police, journalists, international boxers, and ofcourse Blomkvist and Slander are thrown in the ring and everything is tied together with a coherent thread. Not an easy task that. We discover how the whole “Guardian” business of the first book is important. It’s difficult to not give away spoilers, but Millenium, the monthly Blomkvist works for, has latched onto a story of Girl Trafficking. They are about to run an expose, when the journalist who was working on the story gets shot. Salander turns out to be the lead suspect. Again, it’s not some ridiculous twist which exculpates Salander of her charges. It’s made amply clear from the beginning that she is not the guilty one. So really, it’s not a spoiler. Salander, now a fugitive, goes underground. In fact, Blomkvist and Salander meet only twice in the whole book. Details about Salander’s past coming hurtling out. What begins as an attempt to thwart a journalist, rapidly becomes an unlikely story of revenge. Salander, for the jerk she is, gets a lot of help without ever asking for it. The loyalty she commands from very bizarre corners is strange, but at the same time, absolutely believable. That is a sign of good writing. Turns out Lisbeth’s jack-ass guardian was her guardian not by coincidence. The national security police, or CBI or NSA equivalent of Sweden administered the move. Not that the guardian knew it. Neither did Salander. But it becomes a royal mess by the time the book ends… with a bullet lodged in Salander’s head.

The third book is all Blomkvist. Salander is mostly in a hospital bed. She plays her part from there. But it’s Blomkvist who carefully orchestrates a guerilla war on the security police. It doesn’t take a Jason Bourne to go rogue and live to tell the tale. Mikael shows how it’s done in a very (I cannot stress enough on this word) believable manner. This book is pure brilliance in storytelling. The main villain of the first book, Zala, is in cahoots with the security police, or rather, a small section within security police. The only way this Section can get away with violating Salander in countless ways since she was 13, is by violating her some more and ensuring she is incriminated in a whole list of murder charges, and qualified as a danger to society. Lisbeth’s only hope is to rely on Blomkvist. The case strapped on Salander is mightily complex. The only way to get Salander acquitted is to prove the wrong-doings of the Section. Filtering away all the accoutrements, that’s the simplicity of the plot.

So what do I think of the overall series. In four words, it’s one helluva ride. Salander, or Blomkvist might not be Dorothy and Potter who will stand the test of time. But they are very well written, and intelligently casted. They are very real. Their thoughts are their thoughts, and their individuality is striking. It’s rare for a book to have 2 protagnists who hardly meet. In that situation, it’s even more difficult to make a reader care for both the protagonists. But Blomkvist achieves that. The stories themselves, especially the 2^nd and 3^rd books are immensely complex in a single, unbroken chain. Unlike most suspense-thrillers where bits and pieces of thrill is added to make a sum-total of a plot. Once you have read through the series… you realize that it’s perfect and you wouldn’t change a thing. It takes a lot of reading to get there for sure. But believe me, it is interesting as hell. Heaven forbid, if you ever pick up reading the book at 11 in the night… doesn’t matter which part., you are going to be awake for a long time.

A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I have read a bunch of Sherlock Holmes stories, and have unfailingly enjoyed them. But that was a long, long time ago.

And then I saw Sherlock Holmes the movie, and enjoyed it for what it was. RDJ probably doesn’t look very Sherlock Holmes going by the description in the books. But he acts the part perfectly. Jude Law, as Watson, is a lot more dynamic and involved in the movie than Watson is in any of the stories. But the visual rendition of one of my favourite fictional characters made me want to read whatever Sherlock Holmes stories I had not read. So when I set my eyes on a two-stories book, featuring A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, I picked it up without hesitation.

A Study in Scarlet

A Study in Scarlet, as it turned out is a sort of a Sherlock Holmes, The Origins. It is after all, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first book. And the genesis of Sherlock Holmes is as interesting as he himself, which is explained in the lovely introduction by David Stuart Davies (an established Sherlock Holmes fan and researcher).

In ‘A Study in Scarlet’ J.Watson is introduced to Sherlock Holmes in their mutual quest for a room-mate and an apartment to live in. And thus they discover the legendary 221B, Barker Street. Watson, after a long drawn confusion about the ends to which Holmes did his esoteric chemical experiments, discovers that Holmes is a private detective, and that too, the best there ever was.

The first case that Watson finds himself involved in is the mysterious death of a Drebber in an empty house. And the rival policemen, Lestrade and Gregson, invite Holmes for his opinion. And Holmes, having gone around the place tips the Yard with the probable appearance of the murderer. And thereafter, in three days, no more, hands over the murderer to the Police in handcuffs.

Then, there is a back story given to explain the lead up to the killings (yes, plural) that Sherlock Holmes solves. Perhaps the narrative style is more conventional for this section in itself. But given the context of the book, I did like the way that the author breaks away from Watson’s perspective and takes the role of the narrator himself. The alternative was to have the murderer explain the background story. But that robs the writer of the freedom in explaining the context as well as he’d like to. So while you do miss Sherlock Holmes and Watson in this middle section, it serves a purpose. And plus it is not some 200 page story with a known ending that you have to read. It is fairly short and crisp narrative and keeps you engaged. Eventually, Sherlock Holmes comes back and ties up the loose ends, explaining his deduction methods to an impressed, and inspired, Watson.

On to The Sign of Four…

The Sign of Four

The Sign of Four, in its essence, is not very different from A Study in Scarlet. It has a lot of similar elements: long history behind the present mystery, revenge as core motive to the crime, a victim stalked patiently for a long time and an elaborate back story. What is different about The Sign of Four is, unlike most detective fiction, the story doesn’t start with a stray dead body.

It starts with Miss Mary Morstan, approaching Holmes to assist her while meeting strangers who claim to offer knowledge of her missing father. There are several perplexing facts around the disappearance of her father, amongst them being that Miss Morstan was being delivered a single expensive pearl every year. The meeting, that Holmes and Watson go to, along with Miss Morstan, has been requested by the son of Major Sholto, who was a friend of the lady’s father. Then as the story progresses, the other son of Major Sholto is discovered dead in his house. Oh there had to be a dead body somewhere! And as usual, despite Holmes giving helpful clues to the police, they arrest the wrong people, and it is up to Holmes to nab the criminal and serve justice.

The story has plenty of unusual elements that keep adding to the mystery and really makes you wonder about how is it all going to be tied up. But the author does a great job at that. And it’s another Sherlock Holmes hit for you!