Title: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Author: Stieg Larsson

My Rating: 3/5

My Review: With all the excitement surrounding this "Millennium" saga, I decided to read the books and decide for myself if it lived up to the hype or not. Sadly, to my opinion, no. Although the main storyline has the potential to become an interesting thriller, it never actually takes off because it's simply too slow to be considered a thriller. In fact, the two main characters of the entire saga only meet halfway through the book (which in a 500 pages book it's quite a lot). And the interesting part of the story (finding the responsible person for the disappearance of a girl 40 years ago) is constantly clouded by secondary stories (the Wennerstrom affair and the problems with the Millennium magazine) that never actually become relevant to the main storyline. But apparently, I was not the only one to think of this. The Swedish movie adaptation of the book focuses mainly on the "mystery solving" part of the book, leaving those secondary stories where they belong: in the background and with little or no importance.

Title: The Girl Who Played With Fire

Author: Stieg Larsson

My Rating: 4/5

My Review: Although the second book is better than the first, it still suffers from similar problems: slow start, too many secondary stories and irrelevant bits. However, a few chapters in, I finally realized why the author decided to focus so much on the character building phase on the first book. These books were never intended to be individual thriller books that just happened to have the same characters. They are instead part of a very large novela, which was cut into several books just for convenience (because it's not handy to carry one book with 10 000 pages or so). In fact, it is said the author had already 10 books planned out but, sadly, died before he could complete the fourth book. Unfortunately, this second book didn't spike my curiosity to the point that I would go and read the third book. Especially, because I guess it's more of the same (600 pages or so) and my "to-read" pile probably has more interesting candidates that should attend to.

Title: The Gun Seller

Author: Hugh Laurie

My Rating: 4/5

My Review: Yep, it's that Hugh Laurie, the famous Dr. House. But no, this book has nothing to do with being a grumpy doctor or with Hugh Laurie himself. This is a simple fictional tale of espionage and terrorism, where the main character, a former British soldier gets caught in a very large conspiracy theory involving guns, terrorists and beautiful women. The book can be very funny sometimes, but the confusing storyline and the overly-sarcastic tone of the main character lead me to cut off one point out of the possible 5. But nevertheless, it's quite good.

Title: Minority Report

Author: Philip K. Dick

My Rating: 5/5

My Review: This was actually one of those situations where I've seen the movie (which I loved) and then felt the need to read the book. Being a short story, it is only natural that the book is not as rich as the movie in terms of the ambiance surrounding the year 2050. However, I found the story of the book a lot more interesting, mainly because it actually makes more sense regarding the actual subject of the story: if you have 2 people that predict a crime in the future and another predicts something different than the other two (a minority report), presenting a valid alternative where no crime is committed, does that mean that the author of the crime should still be charged of a crime he hasn't committed but potentially will? In the movie, this was not an issue as there was never a minority report to begin with (basically, the future outcome was inevitable). But in the book, this is explored up to the last page, which ultimately leads to a more interesting plot.

Title: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Author: Douglas Adams

My Rating: 5/5

My Review: I've read the first book a long, long time ago and never got around to read the other books. So, I got this version that comprises the five books of the saga: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks For All the Fish and Mostly Harmless. There isn't much I can say about this that'll make it justice. It's a brilliant piece of comedy, creativity, philosophy and space exploration. Douglas Adams was able to design a Universe that could only be rivaled by something out of the mind of Monty Python, if they ever decided to go on to space. I think I've never laughed so much reading a book as with this one.

Title: A Study in Scarlet

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My Rating: 4/5

My Review: I remember enjoying the BBC TV series when I was just a kid and how often looking at a magnifying glass immediately transported me to that world where I was this clever detective that would solve complicated mysteries just by looking at microscopic evidences that no one else would pick up. However, the books were a bit too much for my age, so I ended up never reading them. Recently, the new BBC mini-series "Sherlock" (which is great, by the way) triggered those memories and I decided to read at least the first of the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And I quite enjoyed it, once I got used to the 19Th. century English. As pointed out, this is the first of the books that feature Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It describes how they become acquainted and how they ended up living together in the famous address 221B Baker Street, in London. It also tells the story of the solving of their first mystery, which is a great way to introduce Sherlock Holmes' deduction skills. Nevertheless, I was disappointed at the way the story line was presented. The first part describes their acquaintance, the mystery murder and ends with Sherlock Holmes apprehending the murderer (but without explaining how he arrived to that conclusion). Then suddenly, there is a halt in the main storyline and the second part describes the (lengthy) background story of the murderer (going back 20 years) and motives behind the crime. Finally, the third part describes Sherlock Holmes' deductions based on the clues and how he came to unveil the killer. So, apart from the excessive fragmentation of the plot, I enjoyed the book and I'm planning to read one book of the series every once in a while, just to keep the love for solving mysteries, alive.