I’m going to dedicate an entire post to this series because I just finished the final installment and wanted to sum up my thoughts. First off, Laura, I’m going to have to disagree with your assessment that the last novel wasn’t very good. I just spent the last 3 hours, uninterrupted, finishing the last 150+ pages. It was the first time in a very long time I read a book, finished the last line and said “I liked that.” The ending really brought the books together and aside from the mystery of her sister, I liked how it all came together. It’s funny too because in the last couple pages I was thinking what ever happened to…

The books had you had you genuinely liking the protagonists and felt the relationships among them. The first book was an introduction to the characters and a story. The 2nd got more personal amongst the characters and set up the 3rd book which really tied things up in entertaining fashion. I can’t think of a more satisfied feeling of a book then finishing that series. I don’t know how the series is geared to but the as a 27 year old guy, I was captivated throughout. I found the reading to be really easy, basically a page a minute with nothing difficult to understand. Sometimes character names were tough to identify, Ekstrom and Edklinth come to mind. It wasn’t a real issue but not American names just took some getting used to.

I found them making Blomkvist a little too suave but I just pictured him as Daniel Craig and everything worked out. I think they gave Lizbeth a little too much physical power but it comes with the novel. All the other characters were pretty much secondary and the Figuerola-Blomkvist love interest at the end seemed completely unnecessary. The truth of the matter is though that in the last two books I spent straight hours finishing them because I didn’t want to put it down. Not only that but now I get to feel like a part of popular culture because I’m in tune with Steig Larsson and the Girl Who… Chicks dig it.