Getting to the point where the action can begin involves about 100 pages of slightly bewildering political backstory and a flood of new characters. But Larsson is a sharp enough writer to handle that. What really disappoints is the flatness and predictability of the characters, old and new. Most men are baddies who stay bad. And all the women are goodies who stay good.

Consequently, the men who have abused their power to hurt women all get their come-uppance. This occurs in a variety of cruel and unusual ways: one is shot in the face; another has his leg smashed with a police baton; a third has his feet nailed to the floor with a nailgun before being shot; a fourth is exposed in court as a paedophile.

Blomkvist, meanwhile, gets off scot-free. In fact, he gets to have healthy, no-strings, Swedish rumpy-pumpy with virtually every bird he meets. Which strikes me as strange, since the urge one would most closely associate with his endless journalistic moralising would be the one to clatter him about the ears with a rolled-up copy of the Swedish PCC code of practice.

All that said, Larsson’s books are certainly page-turners. And there is the thrill of a murky reality too. Swedish inheritance law being based on medieval German custom, poor old Larsson’s commonlaw widow hasn’t seen a bean from the (approximately) 13 million copies his books have sold across Europe. Ironically enough, Larsson’s father and brother have swiped all the cash.

And there’s been an intellectual betrayal: against the author’s firm wish, the titles of his books have been meddled with. In Swedish this one was called The Queen in the Air Castle. The first, naturally enough, was called Men Who Hate Women.

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