The Girl Who Played with Fire
Stieg Larsson
 The novel is formally divided into a prologue followed by four parts. The prologue of the book opens with a girl captured and restrained inside a dark room by an unidentified male. To cope with being captured, she mentally replays a past episode when she threw a milk carton filled with gasoline onto another man inside a car and tossed an ignited match onto him. Salander, after finishing the job on the Wennerström affair (described in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), disappeared from Sweden and traveled throughout Europe. The novel opens with Salander at the shores of the Caribbean in St. George's, the capital of Grenada. She has become interested in Fermat's Last Theorem and mathematics, an interest that resounds with the opening page of each Part in this novel. From within her room in her hotel she observes on several occasions that her neighbor, Dr. Forbes, an American tourist from Texas, physically abuses his wife next door to her room. She also befriends George Bland, an introverted sixteen year old student living in a small shack, and she begins tutoring him in mathematics. Salander finds Bland's company relaxing and enjoyable because Bland does not ask her personal questions, and the two develop a sexual relationship. Lisbeth Salander uses her connections among the hackers' network to investigate Dr. Forbes and learns that Reverend Robert Forbes was once accused of mishandling of funds in his faith-based foundation. Currently he has no assets, but his wife is the heir of a fortune worth $40 million. Due to concerns for safety, the residents at the hotel begin to enter the hotel cellar as a hurricane hits Grenada. Salander remembers Bland and braves the strong wind and rain to collect him. As the two reach the hotel entrance, Salander sees Dr. Forbes on the beach with his wife and realizes that he is attempting to kill her for her inheritance. Salander attacks Dr. Forbes with the leg of a chair, and abandons him to the elements. Salander, Bland and Mrs. Forbes retreat to the cellar and receive medical care; Dr. Forbes is later confirmed to have died during the night. Lisbeth Salander returns to Stockholm after more than a year away. Immediately before the Wennerström affair became public knowledge, Salander laundered a sum of three billion kronor into a disguised bank account. With this sum she purchases a new up-scale apartment outside of Mosebacke Torg and moves out of her old apartment in Lundagatan. Salander allows her current sex partner, Miriam Wu, to move into her old apartment, for the price of 1 krona and the condition that Wu forward all of Salander's mail. She also re-establishes contact with Dragan Armansky, her former boss at Milton Securities, and former legal guardian Holder Palmgren, who fell victim to a stroke during the events of Dragon Tattoo. Nils Bjurman, Palmgren's replacement, continues to brew a growing hatred for his ward after the events of Dragon Tattoo. His fury has caused him to diminish his practice down to a single client (Salander) and focus his attention on capturing her and destroying the CDs. He scrutinizes Salander's medical records, identifies an incident named "All the Evil" as well as a person from her past as his strongest ally. In the meantime, Mikael Blomkvist, the publisher of Millennium magazine, has lost all contact with Salander for over a year, as she has refused to even open his letters. His only contact with her at all is a physical intervention when, while he is walking past her apartment in the vain hope of running into her, she is cornered by a man from the Svavelsjö outlaw motorcycle club with a beer gut and a ponytail. Blomkvist swings in to help, to Salander's astonishment, and between their efforts she manages to elude her attacker. Millenium are approached by Dag Svensson, a young journalist, and Mia Johanssen, a doctoral candidate. They have together written a meticulously-researched report, ironically titled "From Russia with Love," about sex trafficking in Sweden and the abuse of underage girls by high-ranking figures, which will be her doctoral thesis and which Svensson now wants Millennium to publish as an exposé. While the research is mostly complete, Svensson, Johanssen and the Millenium staff are intrigued by reoccuring mentions of the name "Zala," a shadowy figure who evidently runs most of Sweden's sex-trafficking industry. Salander, hacking Mikael Blomkvist's computer, is taken aback by the mention of Zala and visits Svennson and Johanssen to ask questions. Later that night, Blomkvist, who had been invited to visit the couple, finds them both shot dead in their apartment. Salander's fingerprints are on the murder weapon. Blomkvist notifies Erika Berger, the editor in chief of Millennium and his occasional lover, of the double murder. The next morning, the magazine office holds an emergency meeting to work out the logistics of postponing the publication of Svensson's book and the associated magazine special. The staff decides to backtrack Svensson's research to ensure the accuracy of the material, and to comb through it for possible murder motives, while Blomkvist is tasked with finishing Svensson's mostly-completed book. Prosecutor Richard Ekström assembles an investigation team, led by Inspector Jan Bublanski, who demands that Sonja Modig be included in the team. The team identifies Salander's fingerprints on the murder weapon. Salander's formal record establishes her as a violent, unstable, psychotic woman with a history of prostitution, but Armansky, Blomkvist and Berger all vouch for her intelligence and moral fiber; neither Mikael nor Erika were even aware of her psychiatric history. While investigating her social circle, Modig finds Bjurman shot dead in his apartment by the same revolver that slew Svennson and Johanssen; Salander remains the prime suspect. In the light of this new evidence, Ekström holds a press conference and discloses Salander's name and psychiatric history to the press, describing her as a danger to others and herself. Blomkvist enlists the help of managing editor Malin Eriksson to investigate the murders, during which he realizes that Salander has hacked into his notebook computer. He leaves her notes on his desktop, and her replies point him to "Zala". He confronts Gunnar Björck, a policeman on sick leave and one of the johns identified by Dag and Mia, who agrees to disclose information about Zala if Blomkvist leaves him out of Millenium's exposé. On the other hand, Milton Security becomes involved in the investigation as Armansky decides to send two of his employees, Hedström and Bohman, to aid the formal police investigation. Miriam Wu returns from a Paris trip to find herself taken to the police station and confirms Salander's intelligence and moral character. However, Hedström leaks Wu's identity into the press, and the press publishes extensively about Wu's ownership of a Gay Pride Festival; both she and Salander are sensationalized in the media as members of a "lesbian Satanist gang." The press also publishes about Salander's past from childhood to 11, and from 14 onward. Part 3 closes with Salander wondering why the press's inside source has not chosen to publicize "All the Evil," the events which dominated the gap in her biography, as they would swing public opinion even further against her. Blomkvist is approached by Paolo Roberto, a boxing champion and Salander's former training master. Blomkvist suggests Roberto seek out Miriam Wu for conversation, as she has been avoiding all press, including Mikael himself. In the meantime, on Salander's suggestion Blomkvist focuses onto Zala as the key connection between the three murders and sex trafficking. As the police continue the investigation, Blomkvist's team also notices the three-year gap in Salander's biography. Blomkvist decides to confront Björck and trade his anonymity for information on Zala. Roberto, staking out Salander's former apartment in the hopes of catching Wu, witnesses her kidnapped into a van by a paunchy man with a ponytail (Salander's former attacker) and a blond giant. He follows the van out to a warehouse south of Nykvarn, where he attempts to rescue Wu by boxing with the blond giant. He finds his opponent unusually muscular and totally insensitive to pain, and only through applications of massive blunt trauma can he and Wu stun the giant enough to escape. The blond giant recovers and sets the warehouse on fire to remove all evidence. However, Roberto is able to direct the police to the site, where they find three buried and dismembered bodies there, presumably deposited by the blond giant. Visiting Bjurman's summer cabin, Salander finds a classified Swedish Security Service file written about "All The Evil," and begins to make the connection between Bjurman and Zala. According to the information, Zala's real name is Alexander Zalachenko. By sheer coincidence, two members of Svavelsjö MC, Carl-Magnus Lundin (the paunchy ponytail man) and Sonny Niemenen, have been dispatched to burn the place down, and Salander defeats them, leaving more suspects for Bublanski to find. She returns to her apartment and, having no choice, decides to find Zalachenko and kill him. Salander learns of the blond giant's identity ("Ronald Niedermann") and his connection to a post office box in Göteborg and goes there to find him and Zalachenko. In his apartment, Blomkvist finds Salander's old keys, which he gained during their joint fight with Lundin. He manages to find her new, up-scale apartment as well as Bjurman's DVD. Between Björck and Salander's former guardian, Holder Palmgren, Blomvkist is able to piece together the entire story: Zalachenko is a Russian defector under secret Swedish protection, whose very existence is kept classified by Säpo; Bjurman and Björck only know about him because they happened to be the junior officers on duty the day he marched into a police office and demanded political asylum. Zalachenko, a source of vital information on Russia's intelligence operations, began to traffic in sex slaves on the side, whilst simultaneously settling down with an 18-year-old girl who became pregnant with twins, one named Camilla and the other Lisbeth. He was physically and emotionally abusive to his partner, and while Camilla tended to repress all knowledge of the situation, Lisbeth attempted to defend her mother. One day, after he had beaten her into unconsciousness, Salander deliberately set his car alight with gasoline while he was in it. This is the event Salander refers to as "All the Evil," as the authorities, instead of listening to her pleas on behalf of her mother, imprisoned her and declared her insane. Salander's mother was left with the first of a series of brain aneurysms which consigned her to nursing homes until her death. Salander learned that the government would never listen to her, as acknowledging Zalachenko's crimes would require admitting his existence. Zalachenko was allowed to walk away; however, he suffered serious injuries and had to have his foot amputated. Svenssen and Johanssen were killed by Niedermann on Zalachenko's orders: when Salander visited them, she asked whether Bjurman had ever showed up as one of their johns, and they called him immediately after she left; Bjurman then called Zalachenko in a panic, leading not only to their deaths but his own. Blomkvist does not share all of his findings with Bublanski, in respect for Salander's privacy, but between his testimony, that of Palmgren and Armansky on her character, and the additional accomplices piling up, the police are forced to admit that their original estimation, of Salander as a psychotic murderer, is contradicted by the evidence. Milton Security are ejected from the investigation when it becomes clear that Hedstrom is the inside source who has been leaking sensational details to the press; however, Armansky is satisfied, as his true goal in aiding the investigation—ensuring Salander is not simply condemned as a murderer out of hand—has been achieved. Finally, Blomkvist finds the same Göteborg address that Salander did, and sets off for the farm where Niedermann and Zalachenko await. He has deduced that Salander has entered what Roberto and his boxing friends called "Terminator Mode," where she attacks without restraint to defend her life and those she cares about. Salander gets there first and is captured due to the motion detectors and cameras Zalachenko had installed. He tells Salander that Niedermann is her half-brother. When Salander attempts to escape, Zalachenko shoots her in the hip, shoulder and head, and Niedermann buries her corpse. Salander, still alive, digs herself out and again attempts to kill Zalachenko with an axe, noting that Zalachenko's use of a Browning .22 firearm is the only reason she survived. On his way to Göteborg, Blomkvist sees Niedermann trying to catch a ride with him. He captures Neiderman at gunpoint, tying him against a signpost by the road. The book ends as Blomkvist finds Salander and calls emergency services.