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.

Blood Sport - Dick Francis

If you’ve got a Dick Francis two-story omnibus, then you might as well read both the stories at one go.
Blood Sport, as far as Dick Francis stories go, had quite a convoluted plot. And for the first time amongst the four books of his that I have read, I felt at a loss as the racing terminologies started raining. And that did have quite a ruining effect for me despite the story itself being quite fast paced.
The hero, Gene Hawkins, is a ‘civil servant’. The implications of the job title and what he really does for a living are never really clarified. That aspect of Gene hangs like a constant mystery throughout the book, which really adds a lot of appeal to the character. Is he an assassin? A spy? Espionage agent? Police? It’s anyone’s guess. His talents, though not up at par with, say, Jason Bourne, are still pretty damn good at uncovering truths. But his objective is not, as he says, to punish, but to prevent. I wish Gene wasn’t as suicidal however. But Dick Francis does a splendid job of imposing a suicidal trait on such a strong and determined character. And when you read the story you really do realize how the internal struggle of Gene impacts the direction of the path he takes, and the flow of the story. Dick Francis gets down to being poignant. Can’t say I expected it from a writer of horse racing thrillers. But he does a good job at it.
So Gene, given he is some sort of a spy or something, is asked by his employer, Mr. Keeble to look for Dave Teller’s missing horses. He lands in America, in a conquest to find Chrysallis after a murder attempt on Dave Teller, which probably prompted Gene to take the assignment up. Gene, with his half thoughts of killing himself, takes it up with a shrug as one more thing to keep him from killing himself, probably thinking that if he could live and save a life, it might just be worth it.
Chrysallis is the third world class stallions to be stolen in a fairly short space of time, the other two being Alyx and Showman. And Gene, as he retrieves Chrysallis, unearths a shocking and an elaborate fraud, which would shake up the world racing community and risks his as much as his friend’s lives. It’s good that he carries a lugger around in an under-arm holster. You never know when you’d need it. Especially in Gene’s line of work!

Forfeit - Dick Francis

Horse Racing, a brilliant protagonist, and firm, dark, writing which sounds exactly like the narration of Sin City or Max Payne in your head. That makes a very palatable package. And that’s the formula of Dick Francis. His writing is not complicated, but he creates an air of a sort of a calm thrill. If you know what I mean. You don’t exactly imagine a double-woofer, stereophonic death metal music when you read the climax of Dick Francis novel. Nor are deaths unnecessarily graphic. But the thrill is abundantly present.
Forfeit is about James Tyrone. He is a scandal stirring, scam busting reporter at a magazine called Blaze. But this time, the scam that he is trying to prevent threatens to get a bit too nasty for his taste, and a bit too personal as well.
The scam is brilliant in its simplicity. Get a horse piped as a favourite. Gather huge amounts as bets in his favour. And then prevent him from running the race and pocket all the bets since the race counts as a forfeit. As James Tyrone, or Ty, tries a hand at preventing it from happening one more time, he finds himself at the receiving end of physical harm, blackmail, and overconsumption of alcohol. And it’s up to him to get out of the situation he finds himself in. I say, that’s a complicated job to have!
Again, as in most Dick Francis books, the plot is nothing sensational. I mean, you’d think, it’s eventually going to be a plot about horse racing and how sensational it’s going to be? There are obviously not going to be any nuclear missiles that will be fired between nations. But Dick Francis keeps you interested throughout. And that’s where this book succeeds as well.

The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum

Spy Novels have never really appealed to me. It’s not that I am too much of a realist to find stories about international intelligence agencies, and government spies and terrorists over the top. Not at all! I love all these things in your regular spy movies. In fact, I say, they should throw in more terrorists and spies in there. But whatever books I had read on the topic, never really brought out the intensity of a situation as well as it came out for me in a movie. Now since my experience with spy fiction is pretty limited, it could be a case of me reading all the wrong books. But when the first two or three books in a genre don’t work for you, you do tend to lock the entire lineage out. That’s what happened with me.

But Bourne identity, it is one of the favourite books of a voracious reader friend I have got. And since I loved the movie trilogy so much, I decided to give Bourne Identity a read.

And I was blown away!

As it turned out, the only thing common between the movie and the book is Jason Bourne and the fact that he is an amnesic. Everything else is unrelated! I fail to understand why the movie makers would change the story of Bourne Identity! It is fast paced, extremely clever, intense, suspenseful and with the right amount of action for a novel. To be fair, with a different story, the movies were pretty good as well, with the right amount of (and more than the books) action for a movie.

The Bourne Identity is about a man who is found on a French island, loaded with bullets, not in a holster but in his body, minus his memory. But as he is treated by a drunk doctor, a clue is discovered which sends the patient, or Pierre off to a Swiss Bank, under the name of the doctor who treated him, Washburn. On the way, he figures out that he is extremely resourceful and has a knack of getting out of tight situations. He realizes he has more than a working knowledge of some form of martial arts, is adept with weapons, and is masterful with disguises. At the bank, he discovers his name is Jason Bourne. And he also discovers that a whole bunch of unknown enemies are out to kill him. But thanks to the skills he possesses, he manages to kill some and evade some of his other killers.

Now all he wants is to figure out is who he really is.

And in the search for his past he realizes, much to his horror, that Carlos, the international assassin (he is actually in the book) and an American Government organization, Treadstone, are out to kill him. When he digs out the reason, it is all the more horrifying. But in a perfect case of “ Syndrome” an economist from Canada, who he had taken as a hostage, falls in love with him and has unwavering faith that all would be well as long as she was with Jason Bourne.

And propelled by this love, though fearful of losing it because of the truth, Jason Bourne keeps unearthing the past.

The twists in the book are quite gripping. You don’t even know whether you should hate Jason Bourne because he probably is a baddie, or sympathize with him because he is an amnesic. The balance keeps tilting towards the later option because of all the panic attacks that he has whenever he has blinding visions of the past. And of course there is a poor girl in question for who you want the best. And of course Jason Bourne is the hero! And the hero has to, has to be victorious! It’s the how that will keep you hooked on to the book!

Read on...!

Longshot - Dick Francis

An omnibus of Dick Francis Novels at a book store made quite a deal. A 2-book omnibus at Rs.199. What a steal! Not that I would have bought any other author just because he was cheap. Dick Francis happened to be one of the favorite authors of my best friend, who himself is a book enthusiast like I never could be. Plus, horse racing is actually quite a fascinating topic and even a mediocre plot around that is interesting because of the so many new things you learn about a very glamorous sport. So I picked up Longshot, and got down to reading it.

The plot of Longshot… well, is a bit weak in the sense of your regular crime novel. It involves the death of a nobody, an investigation that would never have a global repercussion, and even the most radical conspiracy theorist would fail to link up the crime in the book to “higher powers”. But such is the story. Dick Francis himself takes a jab at this fact in the book, when his Police Detective sighs with resignation that the dead body they found turns out to be an ordinary stable girl.

Enough of the spoilers already!

The climax, while it is fitting to the story, is not quite that nail-biting a finish as you would’ve liked. And the end, though logical and humane, with no ridiculous dues-ex-machina coming into play (ok, maybe a slight one), does not give that satisfaction of triumph of good over evil.
But despite the novel being only a regular story, I enjoyed every bit of it because of the protagonist. He is a writer… Ok, I hear you say, one more author chooses to have a writer protagonist. Isn’t that the easiest, you ask. Well, perhaps. But the protagonist here is an adventurer, and has written a series of books on surviving in hostile environs. And a lot of tips that he shares through the book keep you hooked, while the story progresses around that. So maybe I would not rate the plot too highly, but when I combine that with the protagonist and his livelihood, Longshot gets a “Thumbs Up”. So if you are the kinds who want some wholesome reading and are not overly concerned about the adrenalin factor of a story as long as the book keeps you entertained, you will like Longshot. To end with a corny line… do give Longshot a shot, it might just hit the bull’s eye.