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The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
| Our Price |
$ 31.20
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| Retail Value |
$ 40.00 |
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| You Save |
$ 8.80 (22%) |
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| Item Number |
930505 |
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Item Description...
Overview
While recovering in the hospital, Lisbeth Salander enlists the aid of journalist Mikael Blomkvist to prove her innocent of three murders and identify the corrupt politicians who have allowed her to suffer.
Publishers Description
The stunning third and final novel in Stieg Larsson's internationally best-selling trilogy
Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson's two previous novels—lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She's fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she'll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.
Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back.
From the Hardcover edition.
“A thoroughly gripping read . . . Lisbeth Salander, Stieg Larsson’s fierce pixie of a heroine, is one of the most original characters in a thriller to come along in a while—a gamin, Audrey Hepburn look-alike but with tattoos and piercings, the take-no-prisoners attitude of Lara Croft and the cool, unsentimental intellect of Mr. Spock . . . Owes less to the Silence of the Lambs horror genre than to something by John le Carré.”
—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
“The literary equivalent of a caffeine rush . . . Larsson was one of those rare writers who could keep you up until 3 a.m. and then make you want to rush home the next night to do it again . . . Larsson is something like John Grisham [but] Larsson held an extra ace: the creation of Salander.”
—Newsweek
“It’s over! And I feel the same sense of pleasure and loss that I did when I watched the finale of ‘The Sopranos’ and the last episodes of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ . . . Salander is, I promise, someone you will never forget . . . Anyone who enjoys grounding their imaginations in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of exciting pages about the way we live now ought to take advantage of this trilogy.”
—Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune
"Larsson has produced a coup de foudre, a novel that is complex, satisfying, clever, moral . . . This is a grown-up novel for grown-up readers, who want something more than a quick fix and a car chase. And it's why the Millennium trilogy is rightly a publishing phenomenon all over the world."
—Guardian
“A heart-stopping showdown showcases one of crime fiction’s most unforgettable characters—and cements Larsson’s rep as one of its most passionate and original voices.”
—People
“Confirms Larsson as one of the great talents of contemporary crime fiction.”
—Sunday Times (UK)
“Exhilarating . . . Larsson’s was an undeniably powerful voice in crime fiction that will be sorely missed.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Fast-paced enough to make those Jason Bourne films seem like Regency dramas.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Larsson’s vivid characters, the depth of the detail across the three books, the powerfully imaginative plot, and the sheer verve of the writing make the trilogy a masterpiece of its genre.”
—The Economist
“There are few characters as formidable as Lisbeth Salander in contemporary fiction of any kind . . . She dominates the stage like Lear . . . She will be sorely missed.”
—Booklist
“Larsson’s work is original, inventive, shocking, disturbing, and challenging . . . His novels have brought a much needed freshness into the world of crime fiction.”
—Times (UK)
"Fans will not be disappointed: this is another roller-coaster ride that keeps you reading far too late into the night."
—Evening Standard
From the Hardcover edition.
Stieg Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic, right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
From the Hardcover edition.
chapter 1
Friday, April 8
Dr. Jonasson was woken by a nurse five minutes before the helicopter was expected to land. It was just before 1:30 in the morning.
"What?" he said, confused.
"Rescue Service helicopter coming in. Two patients. An injured man and a younger woman. The woman has gunshot wounds."
"All right," Jonasson said wearily.
Although he had slept for only half an hour, he felt groggy. He was on the night shift in the ER at Sahlgrenska hospital in Göteborg. It had been a strenuous evening.
By 12:30 the steady flow of emergency cases had eased off. He had made a round to check on the state of his patients and then gone back to the staff bedroom to try to rest for a while. He was on duty until 6:00, and seldom got the chance to sleep even if no emergency patients came in. But this time he had fallen asleep almost as soon as he turned out the light.
Jonasson saw lightning out over the sea. He knew that the helicopter was coming in the nick of time. All of a sudden a heavy downpour lashed at the window. The storm had moved in over Göteborg.
He heard the sound of the chopper and watched as it banked through the storm squalls down towards the helipad. For a second he held his breath when the pilot seemed to have difficulty controlling the aircraft. Then it vanished from his field of vision and he heard the engine slowing to land. He took a hasty swallow of his tea and set down the cup.
Jonasson met the emergency team in the admissions area. The other doctor on duty took on the first patient who was wheeled in-an elderly man with his head bandaged, apparently with a serious wound to the face. Jonasson was left with the second patient, the woman who had been shot. He did a quick visual examination: it looked like she was a teenager, very dirty and bloody, and severely wounded. He lifted the blanket that the Rescue Service had wrapped around her body and saw that the wounds to her hip and shoulder were bandaged with duct tape, which he considered a pretty clever idea. The tape kept bacteria out and blood in. One bullet had entered her hip and gone straight through the muscle tissue. He gently raised her shoulder and located the entry wound in her back. There was no exit wound: the round was still inside her shoulder. He hoped it had not penetrated her lung, and since he did not see any blood in the woman's mouth he concluded that probably it had not.
"Radiology," he told the nurse in attendance. That was all he needed to say.
Then he cut away the bandage that the emergency team had wrapped around her skull. He froze when he saw another entry wound. The woman had been shot in the head, and there was no exit wound there either.
Jonasson paused for a second, looking down at the girl. He felt dejected. He often described his job as being like that of a goalkeeper. Every day people came to his place of work in varying conditions but with one objective: to get help.
Jonasson was the goalkeeper who stood between the patient and Fonus Funeral Service. His job was to decide what to do. If he made the wrong decision, the patient might die or perhaps wake up disabled for life. Most often he made the right decision, because the vast majority of injured people had an obvious and specific problem. A stab wound to the lung or a crushing injury after a car crash were both particular and recognizable problems that could be dealt with. The survival of the patient depended on the extent of the damage and on Jonasson's skill.
There were two kinds of injury that he hated. One was a serious burn case, because no matter what measures he took the burns would almost inevitably result in a lifetime of suffering. The second was an injury to the brain.
The girl on the gurney could live with a piece of lead in her hip and a piece of lead in her shoulder. But a piece of lead inside her brain was a trauma of a wholly different magnitude. He was suddenly aware of the nurse saying something.
"Sorry. I wasn't listening."
"It's her."
"What do you mean?"
"It's Lisbeth Salander. The girl they've been hunting for the past few weeks, for the triple murder in Stockholm."
Jonasson looked again at the unconscious patient's face. He realized at once that the nurse was right. He and the whole of Sweden had seen Salander's passport photograph on billboards outside every newspaper kiosk for weeks. And now the murderer herself had been shot, which was surely poetic justice of a sort.
But that was not his concern. His job was to save his patient's life, irrespective of whether she was a triple murderer or a Nobel Prize winner. Or both.
Then the efficient chaos, the same in every ER the world over, erupted. The staff on Jonasson's shift set about their appointed tasks. Salander's clothes were cut away. A nurse reported on her blood pressure-100/70-while the doctor put his stethoscope to her chest and listened to her heartbeat. It was surprisingly regular, but her breathing was not quite normal.
Jonasson did not hesitate to classify Salander's condition as critical. The wounds in her shoulder and hip could wait until later, with a compress on each, or even with the duct tape that some inspired soul had applied. What mattered was her head. Jonasson ordered tomography with the new and improved CT scanner that the hospital had lately acquired.
Jonasson had a view of medicine that was at times unorthodox. He thought doctors often drew conclusions that they could not substantiate. This meant that they gave up far too easily; alternatively, they spent too much time at the acute stage trying to work out exactly what was wrong with the patient so as to decide on the right treatment. This was correct procedure, of course. The problem was that the patient was in danger of dying while the doctor was still doing his thinking.
But Jonasson had never before had a patient with a bullet in her skull. Most likely he would need a brain surgeon. He had all the theoretical knowledge required to make an incursion into the brain, but he did not by any means consider himself a brain surgeon. He felt inadequate, but all of a sudden he realized that he might be luckier than he deserved. Before he scrubbed up and put on his operating clothes he sent for the nurse.
"There's an American professor from Boston working at the Karolinska hospital in Stockholm. He happens to be in Göteborg tonight, staying at the Elite Park Avenue on Avenyn. He just gave a lecture on brain research. He's a good friend of mine. Could you get the number?"
While Jonasson was still waiting for the X-rays, the nurse came back with the number of the Elite Park Avenue. Jonasson picked up the phone. The night porter at the Elite Park Avenue was very reluctant to wake a guest at that time of night and Jonasson had to come up with a few choice phrases about the critical nature of the situation before his call was put through.
"Good morning, Frank," Jonasson said when the call was finally answered. "It's Anders. Do you feel like coming over to Sahlgrenska to help out in a brain op?"
"Are you bullshitting me?" Dr. Frank Ellis had lived in Sweden for many years and was fluent in Swedish-albeit with an American accent- but when Jonasson spoke to him in Swedish, Ellis always replied in his mother tongue.
"The patient is in her mid-twenties. Entry wound, no exit."
"And she's alive?"
"Weak but regular pulse, less regular breathing, blood pressure one hundred over seventy. She also has a bullet wound in her shoulder and another in her hip. But I know how to handle those two."
"Sounds promising," Ellis said.
"Promising?"
"If somebody has a bullet in their head and they're still alive, that points to hopeful."
"I understand. . . . Frank, can you help me out?"
"I spent the evening in the company of good friends, Anders. I got to bed at 1:00 and no doubt I have an impressive blood alcohol content."
"I'll make the decisions and do the surgery. But I need somebody to tell me if I'm doing anything stupid. Even a falling-down drunk Professor Ellis is several classes better than I could ever be when it comes to assessing brain damage."
"OK, I'll come. But you're going to owe me one."
"I'll have a taxi waiting outside by the time you get down to the lobby. The driver will know where to drop you, and a nurse will be there to meet you and get you scrubbed in."
"I had a patient a number of years ago, in Boston-I wrote about the case in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was a girl the same age as your patient here. She was walking to the university when someone shot her with a crossbow. The arrow entered at the outside edge of her left eyebrow and went straight through her head, exiting from almost the middle of the back of her neck."
"And she survived?"
"She looked like nothing on earth when she came in. We cut off the arrow shaft and put her head in a CT scanner. The arrow went straight through her brain. By all known reckoning she should have been dead, or at least suffered such massive trauma that she would have been in a coma."
"And what was her condition?"
"She was conscious the whole time. Not only that; she was terribly frightened, of course, but she was completely rational. Her only problem was that she had an arrow through her skull."
"What did you do?"
"Well, I got the forceps and pulled out the arrow and bandaged the wounds. More or less."
"And she lived to tell the tale?"
"Obviously her condition was critical, but the fact is we could have sent her home the same day. I've seldom had a healthier patient."
Jonasson wondered whether Ellis was pulling his leg.
"On the other hand," Ellis went on, "I had a forty-two-year-old patient in Stockholm some years ago who banged his head on a windowsill. He began to feel sick immediately and was taken by ambulance to the ER. When I got to him he was unconscious. He had a small bump and a very slight bruise. But he never regained consciousness and died after nine days in intensive care. To this day I have no idea why he died. In the autopsy report, we wrote brain haemorrhage resulting from an accident, but not one of us was satisfied with that assessment. The bleeding was so minor, and located in an area that shouldn't have affected anything else at all. And yet his liver, kidneys, heart, and lungs shut down one after the other. The older I get, the more I think it's like a game of roulette. I don't believe we'll ever figure out precisely how the brain works." He tapped on the X-ray with a pen. "What do you intend to do?"
"I was hoping you would tell me."
"Let's hear your diagnosis."
"Well, first of all, it seems to be a small-calibre bullet. It entered at the temple, and then stopped about four centimetres into the brain. It's resting against the lateral ventricle. There's bleeding there."
"How will you proceed?"
"To use your terminology, get some forceps and extract the bullet by the same route it went in."
"Excellent idea. I would use the thinnest forceps you have."
"It's that simple?"
"What else can we do in this case? We could leave the bullet where it is, and she might live to be a hundred, but it's also a risk. She might develop epilepsy, migraines, all sorts of complaints. And one thing you really don't want to do is drill into her skull and then operate a year from now when the wound itself has healed. The bullet is located away from the major blood vessels. So I would recommend that you extract it, but . . ."
"But what?"
"The bullet doesn't worry me so much. She's survived this far and that's a good omen for her getting through having the bullet removed too. The real problem is here." He pointed at the X-ray. "Around the entry wound you have all sorts of bone fragments. I can see at least a dozen that are a couple of millimetres long. Some are embedded in the brain tissue. That's what could kill her if you're not careful."
"Isn't that part of the brain associated with numbers and mathematical capacity?" Jonasson said.
Ellis shrugged. "Mumbo jumbo. I have no idea what these particular grey cells are for. You can only do your best. You operate. I'll look over your shoulder."
Mikael Blomkvist looked up at the clock and saw that it was just after 3:00 in the morning. He was handcuffed and increasingly uncomfortable. He closed his eyes for a moment. He was dead tired but running on adrenaline. He opened them again and gave the policeman an angry glare. Inspector Thomas Paulsson had a shocked expression on his face. They were sitting at a kitchen table in a white farmhouse called Gosseberga, somewhere near Nossebro. Blomkvist had heard of the place for the first time less than twelve hours earlier.
There was no denying the disaster that had occurred.
"Imbecile," Blomkvist said.
"Now, you listen here-"
"Imbecile," Blomkvist said again. "I warned you he was dangerous, for Christ's sake. I told you that you would have to handle him like a live grenade. He's murdered at least three people with his bare hands and he's built like a tank. And you send a couple of village policemen to arrest him as if he were some Saturday night drunk."
Blomkvist shut his eyes again, wondering what else could go wrong that night.
He had found Lisbeth Salander just after midnight. She was very badly wounded. He had sent for the police and the Rescue Service.
The only thing that had gone right was that he had persuaded them to send a helicopter to take the girl to Sahlgrenska hospital. He had given them a clear description of her injuries and the bullet wound in her head, and some bright spark at the Rescue Service got the message.
Even so, it had taken over half an hour for the Puma from the helicopter unit in Säve to arrive at the farmhouse. Blomkvist had gotten two cars out of the barn. He switched on their headlights to illuminate a landing area in the field in front of the house.
The helicopter crew and two paramedics had proceeded in a routine and professional manner. One of the medics tended to Salander while the other took care of Alexander Zalachenko, known locally as Karl Axel Bodin. Zalachenko was Salander's father and her worst enemy. He had tried to kill her, but he had failed. Blomkvist had found him in the woodshed at the farm with a nasty-looking gash-probably from an axe- in his face and some shattering damage to one of his legs which Blomkvist did not bother to investigate.
From the Paperback edition. |
Item Specifications...
Dimensions: Length: 1.75" Width: 5" Height: 5.75"
Weight: 0.95 lbs.
Binding CD
Release Date May 25, 2010
Publisher Random House Audio
ISBN 0739384198
EAN 9780739384190
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Availability 8 units.
Availability accurate as of May 30, 2012 04:38.
Usually ships within one to two business days from Commerce GA.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | The girl who kicked the hornet's nest Dec 21, 2009 |
| For the third time, Steig Larsson delivers. (Too bad the US publishers didn't on this latest and last of the unbelievably popular Millennium Series--apparently they are waiting for some unfathomable reason known only to the inner world of publishing. I know people who paid upwards of 50 dollars for this book. I only paid 12 pounds + shipping by purchasing Hornet's Nest from the UK.) I am savoring every page, every word of this brilliant crime/political/social commentary novel. It is devastating to know that this talented author will not be delivering any more novels. | | |  | Did they edit this book? Dec 15, 2009 |
| Steig Larrson's first 2 volumes were great...the third volume is a bit tiresome as the pieces(good vs. evil) on each side line up for their battle. Alot of proceedural descriptions and not enough of Lisbeth. | | | | Lots of computer hacking and surveillance, not as much "mystery" as the Vanger family story Dec 11, 2009 |
After reading the first two in the series, I couldn't wait for the U.S. release of Hornet's Nest. So I ordered a hardback copy from this site UK. I'm glad that I did.
One of the things that I really liked about Dragon Tattoo was how Salander and Blomkvist simultaneously solve the same mystery by using different means and approaches. Ultimately, they both draw the same conclusion. In Hornets' Nest, there's not much of a mystery to solve in the main story (at least not for the reader). Instead, the focus in Hornets' Nest is how a wide variety of characters with different skills pool their talents and work together to help Salander and take down the secret section of the Swedish secret police that had protected Salander's father. The book also includes a suspenseful side story involving Erika Berger.
I prefer the mystery aspect to Dragon Tattoo, but it is thrilling to read how the loosely-organized group of Salander supporters combine forces. But there is an over-reliance on computer hacking. Too many secretes are revealed solely by computer hacking, and it gets a bit tired and seems lazy. In Dragon Tattoo, the characters used more old-fashioned methods and detective work, and hacking was only one of the tools used. Here, it's too heavily relied on.
There are a lot of new characters, and we learn far too much about everyone within Sapo. But I've come to expect this level of detail in this series, and know that Larsson will eventually focus on what is important. Overall, this was a good read. After all of the introductions and background for the new characters, things really start taking off about halfway through. If you read the first two books in the series, then you must close the loop and read Hornets' Nest.
Finally, the trial/court scene is powerful at times and downright silly at others. I liked how Gianni was allowed to shine and how she set things up to knock down with a vengeance. Also, some of Salander's responses on cross examination are a perfect example of how to conduct oneself during a deposition (if there's not a question being asked, to volunteer anything). But I didn't like how disorganized and chaotic the criminal trial was. My criticism is 100% influenced by my knowledge of U.S. criminal procedure. While I know zero about how Swedish criminal trials are conducted, I hope that they're nothing like what is portrayed in Hornets' Nest. It was an absolute mess, and had me laughing at times. Gianni, the attorney, was allowed to give lengthy narrative (basically a closing argument) in between questions on cross examination. Then she was allowed to switch questioning different witnesses back and forth (question to A, question to B, question to A). Finally, her co-counsel at one point starts giving testimony. It was crazy. If this is how things are done in Sweden, then it's not the author's fault. But I have my doubts. | | | | Fabulous Trilogy Dec 10, 2009 |
I had read "The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo" first, on my Kindle. It took a bit to get into the book, but once that I did, I couldn't put it down; because, it so thoroughly set the stage of the characters and a story line that dominated the entire book. I could not wait to download "The Girl Who Played With Fire".
This book was even better than the first. The fast pace and interesting characters, who had continued from the first book, kept me glued to these pages. In fact, when I finished this book, in two days, I was rather depressed, thinking that there would not be a continuation of these characters, in any other book. I was shocked to see that there was yet another book to read, that did continue the saga of the main character in the books.
Oh no! When I read that the third book would not be released in the United States until May of 2010, I was beside myself. I then saw that I could, in fact, order it from a source in England. I did that immediately through this site, and received the book within two weeks.
There are not enough words to describe how fabulous the last of the trilogy is. There are answers to questions and behaviors of the main characters, that prevailed throughout the previous two books. One gets a very strong message about how women were thought of and treated in Sweden. The political mysteries that were touched upon in the other books come to life and are explained. Most of all, there is closure for the main character.
I did not want this book to end. All three books posessed every element to keep you reading; mysteries, crime, emotions and political hijinks, just to name a few.
It had been meant that these books were to be a set of ten. Sadly, the author, Stieg Larrson, passed away before he could write any others. What a loss for all of us.
A review could never justify the mesmerizing effect that all three books had for me. Pick the first one up, and I guarantee you that you will never stop reading until you have read them all. | | | | The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest Dec 9, 2009 |
| I was very pleased to receive this much sought-after book. I did not realize, however, that this audio book was an abridged version. I would have much preferred the full version. If the abridgement was noted, I missed it. An abridged audio book is often a very unsatisfying experience. This version was adequate; I'm not sure if a full version exists, but it would have been my preference. | | | Write your own review about The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
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