The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson (translated by Reg Keeland)

Stina Persson, from the series Graphic Girls

(August 30, September 9) Nice little thriller in the John Grisham or Dan Brown tradition, but a little more thoughtful in some ways than those two examples (Larsson was very knowledgeable about economics and shared some of this) and interesting because of the setting (Sweden). Larsson is good about throwing slightly different twists into the conventional form -- the mystery's not absolutely predictable -- but there is after all a certain amount of convention about this form.

There are a few gruesome episodes throughout owing to the use of a very unsavoury sub-culture as a plot mechanism, but you've got to find a way to keep the "thrill" amped up if you're writing a "thriller" and this does... so...

I loved the heroine, Lisbeth Salander, and am reading the next one in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire, because of her... and also because of the exoticness of all the open-faced sandwiches and the shopping at IKEA and Konsum. Never thought too much about Sweden before and am now intrigued.

ETA: The Girl Who Played With Fire is also good -- in some ways I like the story better, actually. Am looking forward to The Girl Who Ran With Scissors The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest when it comes out at the end of October.

This second book reinforced the impression I got from the first that Larsson was doing product placements, like a movie. It's either that, or Swedes really like to know the brands of furniture, appliances and so on that characters are using in a book. Strange? Or clever?

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, Alexander McCall Smith

Godfrey Ndaba, Ladies With Pots

(August 9) I love this series and am happy when there's a new one out, but I couldn't squash down the disloyal feeling that McCall Smith is just grinding them out a little bit at this point.

The quirkiness and the surprising little turns of events that make his otherwise hum-drum stories sparkle was kinda lacking from this installment.

Also, there was this off-putting comparison of men's and women's interests that was packaged to come off as "women are smarter than men" but really came off as "women are smarter than men, bless their little hearts." o_O