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talist, Mildred has made lots of friends – and enemies.<br />
Husbands, the local hunting club, and even an assistant<br />
pastor have good reason to hate her.<br />
All of Larsson’s characters are complex and fully<br />
developed. Rebecka herself continues to struggle with two<br />
conflicting goals. She is proud of having become a wellpaid<br />
Oslo lawyer, but her heart keeps dragging her back<br />
to the simple, innocent life she had had in northern<br />
Sweden. And she has already really suffered for her<br />
earlier investigative work. In fact, I am surprised she is still<br />
alive. So she is reluctant to become involved in this case.<br />
But she can’t avoid it. The murder is intriguing, for the<br />
victim herself is clearly a passionate do-gooder, but she<br />
also hides some unpopular secrets. Even the eventual<br />
killer is extraordinarily sympathetic. And, though many of<br />
the men in this small rural town are stubborn, with rough<br />
edges, several of them, like restaurant owner Micke and<br />
ex-cop Lars Gunnar, show many flashes of kindness.<br />
Similarly, the Oslo cops sent to solve the murder are very<br />
likeable. For example, gentle Sven-Erik is very concerned<br />
about a missing cat. Anna-Maria Mella, who’s just coming<br />
back from maternity leave, is a model of shrewd common<br />
sense. Lars Gunnar’s retarded son, Nalle, captivates<br />
everyone with his joyful innocence. Even Yellow Legs, a<br />
she-wolf rejected from her pack, is a charmer. In fact,<br />
Larsson obviously has great love for and lots of knowledge<br />
of animals.<br />
Kiruna, which is a small and relatively poor<br />
village, is carefully drawn. Larsson seems to know the<br />
woods, lakes, and fauna of Sweden very well. It sounds like<br />
a paradise for nature lovers and hunters, at least in the<br />
warmer months.<br />
This well-paced plot has been carefully crafted.<br />
There are a number of provocative red herrings and<br />
mistaken motives. And the murderer really surprised me.<br />
Overall, an intense, absorbing mystery.<br />
� THE BLACK PATH (Delacorte, $12.00, July,<br />
2008). The dead woman was found on a frozen lake, her<br />
body riddled with the evidence of torture. Inspector Anna-<br />
Maria Mella teams up with attorney Rebecka Martinsson<br />
to uncover a tangled drama of secrets, perversion and<br />
criminality.<br />
Stieg Larsson<br />
� THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO<br />
(Knopf, $24.95, September, 2008; Maclehose Press,<br />
£14.99, January, 2008). Rating: A+ [Reviewed by<br />
George Easter] This first novel in the Millenium trilogy is<br />
an exceptional tour de force. I didn’t want this 533-page<br />
enjoyment to end. So how do I describe what was<br />
exceptional? Well, the character of Salander is like none<br />
other I’ve encountered in my reading (although some<br />
might make a superficial comparison to Carol O’Connell’s<br />
Mallory). She is a brilliant researcher and computer<br />
hacker who hides her intelligence from almost everyone<br />
and has more odd behaviors and quirks than just about any<br />
character in mystery fiction that I can think of. All of which<br />
makes her supremely unpredictable and interesting.<br />
<strong>Deadly</strong> <strong>Pleasures</strong><br />
11<br />
The central mystery of the book — what happened<br />
to Harriet Vanger who disappeared several decades<br />
ago while attending a family gathering – is wonderfully<br />
complex . And not least of all is Stieg Larsson’s clear<br />
and measuredly paced writing, which kept me interested<br />
without any soft spots.<br />
If I read a better book in 2008 than this one, it will<br />
have to be one heck of a book. This is not only at the top<br />
of my list for best of the year, it is also on my short list of<br />
best of the decade. But cozy readers beware: there are<br />
some very unpleasant passages (rape and torture) that I<br />
admit to skimming over.<br />
When the author died suddenly a few years ago,<br />
he had completed three books in the series, all of which<br />
have been published in Sweden. It seems that when he<br />
passed away, a draft of book #4 was in the computer, but<br />
is being witheld until his estate is settled and that might be<br />
awhile. It is said that he had planned ten books in the series.<br />
What a loss!<br />
Henning Mankell<br />
Series Character: Inspector Wallander<br />
The books in the order that they were written:<br />
� FACELESS KILLER 1997<br />
� THE DOGS OF RIGA 2001<br />
� THE WHITE LIONESS 1998<br />
� THE MAN WHO SMILED 2005<br />
� SIDETRACKED 1998<br />
� THE FIFTH WOMAN 2000<br />
� ONE STEP BEHIND 2002<br />
� FIREWALL 2004<br />
� THE PYRAMID (The Wallander Stories) 2008<br />
� BEFORE THE FROST (Harvill, £14.99).<br />
Rating: B+ [Reviewed by Bev DeWeese] Mankell strikes<br />
out in a new direction with Wallander’s daughter, Linda,<br />
taking central stage as she prepares to join the police force<br />
and Wallander contemplates retirement. Although she<br />
has a week before she starts at the Ystad station, Linda
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