The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, took the reading world by storm when it came out last year. Featuring crusading journalist Mikail Blomkvist and punk genius hacker Lisbeth Salander, the book is part legal thriller and part psychological suspense, a tale of corporate corruption. The eagerly anticipated sequel to that story, The Girl Who Played with Fire, hits the streets tomorrow. In the second book, Salander takes center stage.

You've probably heard the story behind these books: European crusading journalist Stieg Larsson wrote three books, known as the Millenium series, that were accepted for publication, and then died of a heart attack at age 50. The first two books were huge sellers in Europe and are experiencing similar success in this country.

His long-term partner, Eva Gabrielsson, still lives in their old apartment and is battling Larsson's father and brother to regain control of Larsson's work. Gabrielsson, who lived with Larsson for 30 years, claims she holds a laptop which contains the 200-page draft manuscript of a fourth Millenium mystery.

Not surprisingly, Hollywood is hot for the rights to turn the Millenium series into a blockbuster movie series in the US, with rumors of George Clooney, Johnny Depp, and Brad Pitt all interested in playing the central role of the idealistic journalist Mikael Blomkvist. (A low-budget, Swedish film of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo already exists, although that film -- as well as the book in Sweden and most of Europe -- is titled The Man Who Hates Women.)

Here are reviews of The Girl Who Played with Fire from The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, as well as the story behind the Millenium series inUK-based The Guardian. We open at 10 tomorrow morning, the soonest we can sell the new book (which is in hardcover only), and we have the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in both mass market and trade paperback. Call us to reserve copies for you, because they're going fast!