After having read the previous two books in the trilogy (see also my review of the second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, here), I now read the final volume - over the space of three days, which is rather fast considering it has over 800 pages and was in German translation.

Which immediately brings me to the book's main strong point: it's gripping and keeps the reader interested. I mentioned in my review of the second book that I felt perhaps the plot had been moved forward too far already and not enough was left for the third book. That turned out not to be the case exactly, although I do think the third book became the more predictable for it - after the ending of the second book, it was really not very credible that things would end badly, and so the moments in the third book when things are looking bad, are undermined somewhat.

In terms of weaker points, I could just copy paste entire paragraphs here from my review of the second book, but I'll just briefly touch upon the main points and refer people to said review for more details. Larsson still wastes his time on irrelevant details (we are not merely told exactly how many pages the text is that a character has just written, but also that those pages are in the European DIN-A4 paper format - every time!) and on rudimentary character development for dozens of characters while not fleshing out the actual protagonists enough. Lisbeth Salander is still the only character that you can call properly developed, and it's even more noticeable in this book than it was before that rather a lot of Larsson's characters have Mary Sue-like tendencies. Perhaps even including Lisbeth. And lastly, Larsson's political views are even more pronounced here, as the Swedish establishment plays the largest role yet in the books.

It would be rather entertaining to have someone like Cannoli - or even just a random American conservative with a somewhat analytical mind - critique the political and moral views underlying the story. One of the things that makes Lisbeth Salander an interesting character is her disregard for the law and loathing of the establishment in all its forms - an attitude that Larsson seems to support. Certainly, the crimes he has his bad guys commit - including, to noone's surprise, high-ranking members of the establishment - are bad enough that Salander's and those of her friends pale next to it. But still his view seems to be that the goal justifies the means, and that taking justice into one's own hands is only bad when the bad guys do it.

In addition, Larsson seems to have somewhat of an obsession with misogyny and sexual privacy, to the point where he almost preaches about these two topics: abusing women is bad, and what you do in the bedroom is nobody else's business as long as there is full consent from everyone involved. Obviously those are messages that everyone (in the first case) or at least most people (in the second case) will agree with, but his constant hammering on them gets old after a while. The series might as well have been titled "Misogynist fascist pigs in Sweden", since that seems to be the main topic of the series (note that the original Swedish title of the first book is "Men Who Hate Women", while the English title seems to be a lame attempt to draw attention to the unusual protagonist while trying to gloss over Larsson's misogyny obsession). Larsson repeatedly goes out of his way - and what's worse, out of the way of the plot - to describe men with misogynist thoughts and inclinations, including an entire side-plot involving one of the more important secondary characters and her stalker, which is entirely irrelevant to the main story.

Considering said obsession, it's not a big surprise that Larsson's villains tend to be depicted as evil and in most cases misogynist, with few redeeming characteristics - unless you count being whiny crybabies once their act is up as a redeeming characteristic. The opposite is not as blatantly true - the good guys are not angelic or above all reproach by any means. Though they do seem to get away with everything and evidently have the author's wholehearted approval.

In conclusion, there are obviously many flaws in this book and in the trilogy as a whole, and one cannot say the trilogy is of high quality, even judging by the standards of the genre. However, while the obvious political stances taken in the books may irritate even those who largely share them, nevermind those who don't, they do kind of serve to spice up the series - the passion Larsson has for his pet topics helps to drive the plot and to keep things gripping. Other flaws like that the mediocre characterization do not have any such excuses, but Larsson does know how to construct a gripping plot. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest will largely fulfill the expectations of those who have read the previous two books, which ultimately is what matters most for a third book in a trilogy, while Millennium in its entirety is a significantly flawed but very readable pageturner.