The Girl Who Played With Fire

Two journalists on the verge of exposing their story in the political magazine Millennium about an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden are brutally murdered. The key suspect is Lisbeth Salander, the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker, whose finger prints are found on the murder weapon.

Mikael Blomkvist, Millennium's publisher and former disgraced journalist who befriended Salander during a previous investigation, is alone in his belief in Salander's innocence and swiftly plunges into an examination of the slayings which will implicate highly placed members of Swedish society, business and government. Fully aware that Salander is fierce when fearful, he is desperate to get to her before she is cornered and alone but she is nowhere to be found.

Digging deeper, Blomkvist also unearths some heart-wrenching facts about Salander's past life. Committed to psychiatric care at age 12, declared legally incompetent at 18, she is the product of an unjust and corrupt system.

Meanwhile, the elusive Salander herself is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past.