It's taken me over a year to finally get around to reading this book. I wasn't especially impressed by the first one in the series but interested enough to want to read the second, I just wasn't in any hurry to do so. Consequentally I have forgotten a lot of what happened in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and they made some of the reference in this book a bit difficult- but did not stop me understanding the story as a whole. I think maybe I would have enjoyed this one more if I had read them close together but I still enjoyed it a fair bit. 
 For my memory this one is better than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I was more interested to see what would happen next. I'm still unsure though if it was actually better or if I just has less expectations of it which made it easier to enjoy, I wasn't waiting for it to impress me the whole time.