Stieg Larsson’s next girl

Larsson’s nominal protagonist is a good-natured, if hard-driving, journalist named Mikael Blomkvist, who is rather obviously a projection of the author, though without any spikes, verbal or behavioral, to snag the reader’s attention. That’s where “The Girl” of his titles comes in. Lisbeth Salander is a genius-level computer hacker who is also, essentially, a psychopath — rendered almost mute and unable to trust anyone after a lifetime of abuse, both parental and state-sponsored, both vividly physical and cruelly institutional.Salander quickly demonstrates an ability to give as good as she gets. You really don’t want to be the guardian who sexually tortures her when she takes her revenge. Or, for that matter, her brutish father, a sometime Soviet spy, now running (in “Hornet’s Nest”) a sex-trafficking ring in which, as one might say, “the highest levels of Swedish society” are complicit.”Hornet’s Nest,” which carries on without pause from its predecessor, finds Salander near death from a bullet wound to her head and awaiting desperate medical measures. Mostly, she remains confined there, but physical passivity does not imply helplessness. Give this kid a smuggled computer and a lot of help from her few allies and you can be sure she will confound her smug, well-connected enemies.