The Girl Who Played with Fire (2006) by Stieg Larsson is the second installment in the Millennium series, a blistering fusion of investigative thriller and revenge saga. The novel plunges hacker-genius Lisbeth Salander into a deadly conspiracy when she becomes the prime suspect in a triple murder linked to her traumatic past. As journalist Mikael Blomkvist races to clear her name, the story exposes Sweden’s underworld of sex trafficking, corrupt officials, and Lisbeth’s own horrifying family secrets—culminating in a showdown with her monstrous father, Alexander Zalachenko.
Larsson’s razor-sharp prose and feminist fury electrify the narrative, though the pacing sprawls compared to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. A visceral, socially charged page-turner that cements Lisbeth as one of crime fiction’s most iconic antiheroes.
