I love these books, and Lisbeth Salander is a great character. I liked how slowly the story was set up and how Larsson left us dangling when he shifted from Lisbeth's to Mikail's point of view after the murders. There is a sense of the unreal or incredible when people suffer horrible injuries and yet survive (& recover better than they ought to?), but that's a small quibble. I know that many readers complain about Larsson's interminable descriptions of trivial things (like naming all of Salander's IKEA furniture, or having to give us the brand names and specs of every electronic device, computer, and appliance), but I rather like it. I will say that I wasn't at all surprised by any of the surprises however. (view spoiler)[I suspected that Zala was Salander's father pretty much right after his first mention. I also figured that the blond giant had that genetic defect where a person can't feel pain before that was revealed to us (though he ought to have still dropped after being tasered, since that works by disrupting electric impulses to muscles). (hide spoiler)] I'm looking forward to the third installment.