The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest
Chapters - Stieg Larsson
Part 1: Intermezzo in a Corridor
Chapter 1
Dr. Jonasson receives Lisbeth Salander at Sahlgrenska Hospital's ER with gunshot wounds to her hip, shoulder, and head. He discovers the bullet is lodged in her brain and, defying conventional wisdom, decides to operate immediately rather than wait. The surgery is a success, and Jonasson removes the bullet, though Salander's recovery remains uncertain.
POV: Anders Jonasson·On page: Lisbeth Salander, Frank Ellis·Mentioned: Alexander Zalachenko
Chapter 2
On the morning after the Gosseberga showdown, Sonja Modig and Jerker Holmberg meet Mikael Blomkvist at Göteborg police headquarters with Inspector Marcus Erlander. Blomkvist briefs them step by step on how he pieced the Alexander Zalachenko story together, but refuses to give up the address of Lisbeth Salander's secret flat. In Stockholm, Prosecutor Richard Ekström anxiously meets Jan Bublanski to work out how to salvage a case that has fallen apart now that Salander is no longer the obvious killer. Blomkvist starts mapping out how to expose the conspiracy around Zalachenko in the pages of Millennium.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist·On page: Dragan Armansky, Holger Palmgren, Jerker Holmberg, Marcus Erlander·Mentioned: Lisbeth Salander
Chapter 3
Modig and Erlander interview Zalachenko in his Sahlgrenska room. Bandaged and in pain, he insists on being called Karl Axel Bodin, blames everything on his daughter and on a Säpo handler he claims fantasised in old reports, and tries to distance himself from Ronald Niedermann. Later, a quiet visitor named Jonas Sandberg slips into the same room with a very different agenda. In Stockholm, Evert Gullberg reads the morning papers in his hotel and concludes that the Section for Special Analysis must act fast to keep Zalachenko from talking.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist·On page: Erika Berger, Alexander Zalachenko, Sonja Modig, Jerker Holmberg, Curt Andersson, Birger Wadensjöö, Jonas Sandberg, Marcus Erlander·Mentioned: Lisbeth Salander
Chapter 4
In Södertälje, Prosecutor Fransson works through the Nykvarn burial-ground evidence and decides what to charge Carl-Magnus Lundin and Sonny Nieminen with for the kidnapping of Miriam Wu and the warehouse arson. Bublanski's team in Stockholm pieces together Ronald Niedermann's escape route from Gosseberga, including the dental nurse Anita Kaspersson he abducted and the murders of the bookkeeper Viktor Göransson and his partner. Gullberg arrives at the Section's flat on Artillerigatan and briefs Birger Wadensjöö, Fredrik Clinton, Georg Nyström and Hans von Rottinger. They agree that Zalachenko, Bjurman's old report and Blomkvist all have to be dealt with.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist, Evert Gullberg·On page: Lisbeth Salander, Jan Bublanski, Sonja Modig, Hans Faste, Richard Ekström, Birger Wadensjöö, Georg Nyström, Hans-Erik von Rottinger, Marcus Erlander·Mentioned: Paolo Roberto, Miriam Wu, Carl-Magnus Lundin, Anita Kaspersson, Viktor Göransson, Lena Nygren
Chapter 5
Blomkvist spends the night with Erika Berger talking the Zalachenko story through and learning that she has accepted the editor in chief role at Svenska Morgon-Posten. The next morning he calls Dragan Armansky and starts lining up allies. At Sahlgrenska, the retired Section officer Evert Gullberg walks into Zalachenko's hospital room, shoots him dead, then turns the pistol on himself. The killing throws the Bublanski investigation into chaos and pulls the rug from under Ekström's case.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist, Erika Berger·On page: Dragan Armansky, Holger Palmgren, Evert Gullberg·Mentioned: Gunnar Björck, Nils Bjurman
Chapter 6
Blomkvist formally promotes Malin Eriksson to editor in chief at Millennium and settles in to write the Zalachenko book. At the Section's safe flat, Fredrik Clinton, Wadensjöö and Nyström divide up the work that needs doing now that Gullberg is dead, including silencing the Gunnar Björck report and dealing with Blomkvist. Meanwhile Bublanski and Modig start to suspect that someone inside the security police is feeding Ekström poisoned information.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist·On page: Lisbeth Salander, Peter Teleborian, Malin Eriksson, Christer Malm, Henry Cortez, Monika Nilsson, Lotta Karim, Dragan Armansky, Sonja Modig, Jerker Holmberg, Curt Andersson, Hans Faste, Richard Ekström, Fredrik Clinton, Georg Nyström, Marcus Erlander·Mentioned: Evert Gullberg
Chapter 7
Blomkvist hosts a closed meeting at Milton Security's offices with Armansky, Holger Palmgren, his sister Annika Giannini, Malin Eriksson and former inspector Sonny Bohman. He sets out the full Zalachenko-Section picture on the whiteboard and proposes a coordinated counter-attack to clear Salander's name, calling them the Knights of the Idiotic Table. Late that night at Sahlgrenska, a crutch-bearing Zalachenko slips into Salander's hospital room, but withdraws when he realises she is awake and ready to fight.
On page: Mikael Blomkvist, Malin Eriksson, Monika Nilsson, Lotta Karim, Sonny Bohman
Part 2: Hacker Republic
Chapter 8
Erika Berger starts her first day as editor in chief of Svenska Morgon-Posten. She is introduced to outgoing editor Håkan Morander, CEO Magnus Borgsjö, news editor Anders Holm and assistant editor Peter Fredriksson, and quickly senses that Holm will be a difficult colleague. At Sahlgrenska, Salander logs into the Hacker Republic from her smuggled Palm and asks Plague and Trinity to start hunting down the people behind the Zalachenko conspiracy. The Section quietly assigns Jonas Sandberg and Göran Mårtensson to keep tabs on Blomkvist.
POV: Erika Berger, Lisbeth Salander·On page: Plague, Magnus Borgsjö, Peter Fredriksson, Anders Holm, Håkan Morander·Mentioned: Trinity
Chapter 9
Editor in chief Håkan Morander collapses at his desk and dies of a heart attack, and Berger is forced to step up as acting editor in chief the same afternoon. She begins testing which of Holm, Fredriksson, CFO Sellberg and the rest of the SMP team she can rely on. At the Section's Artillerigatan flat, Fredrik Clinton takes operational command from a sidelined Wadensjöö, while Georg Nyström and Jonas Sandberg work out how to discredit Blomkvist and isolate Salander before her trial.
POV: Monica Figuerola·On page: Lisbeth Salander, Annika Giannini, Fredrik Clinton, Birger Wadensjöö, Georg Nyström, Jonas Sandberg, Hans-Erik von Rottinger, Magnus Borgsjö, Peter Fredriksson, Anders Holm, Håkan Morander·Mentioned: Ronald Niedermann
Chapter 10
Blomkvist works steadily on his book about Salander and the Zalachenko conspiracy. He debriefs the Göteborg stringer Olsson, who spots a Säpo officer named Göran Mårtensson trailing Blomkvist around Stockholm, and follows the trail back to Niedermann's flight via the Göransson murders. At Bellmansgatan he also realises his apartment is being watched. Meanwhile Ekström takes a third quiet meeting with the supposed SIS superintendent Nyström, who continues to feed him a version of the case shaped to suit the Section.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist·On page: Henry Cortez, Fredrik Clinton, Birger Wadensjöö, Jonas Sandberg·Mentioned: Lisbeth Salander, Paolo Roberto, Gunnar Björck, Hans-Erik Wennerström, Carl-Magnus Lundin, Dag Svensson, Mia Bergman, Göran Mårtensson, Viktor Göransson
Chapter 11
Blomkvist drives down to Göteborg in Salander's old Honda and recruits Idris Ghidi, a Kurdish cleaner who works the intensive care corridor at Sahlgrenska, to smuggle a hand-held computer to Salander. He explains the plan carefully and pays Ghidi in cash. Back in Sahlgrenska, Salander remains under formal arrest, still cut off from the outside world. The Section's surveillance on Blomkvist continues in parallel.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist·On page: Lisbeth Salander, Erika Berger, Anders Jonasson, Magnus Borgsjö, Peter Fredriksson, Anders Holm, Idris Ghidi·Mentioned: Lars Faulsson
Chapter 12
Armansky invites Superintendent Torsten Edklinth, director of Constitutional Protection at SIS, to Sunday dinner on Lidingö. Over the meal Armansky lays out the photographs and documentation Blomkvist has gathered and tells Edklinth that a faction inside the Security Police is running a criminal operation around Salander and Zalachenko. Edklinth spends a sleepless night and decides he has to investigate, very quietly, inside his own service.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist·On page: Dragan Armansky, Erika Berger, Torsten Edklinth
Chapter 13
Monica Figuerola briefs Edklinth on what she has dug up so far on Göran Mårtensson, and they realise Chief of Secretariat Albert Shenke must have authorised Mårtensson's secondment. Figuerola also flags Evert Gullberg's strangely thin biography, suggesting his career after the fifties was deliberate cover. Edklinth tells her to keep digging quietly. At Sahlgrenska, Anders Jonasson is still keeping Salander safely tucked away from Ekström's questioning.
POV: Monica Figuerola·On page: Lisbeth Salander, Anders Jonasson, Georg Nyström, Göran Mårtensson, Torsten Edklinth, Anders Berglund, Helena Endrin·Mentioned: Gunnar Björck, Hans-Erik Wennerström, Evert Gullberg, Albert Shenke
Chapter 14
Monica Figuerola parks outside Mårtensson's flat in Vällingby at dawn and starts a long surveillance shift, building a picture of his daily movements. At Sahlgrenska, Salander develops a sudden splitting headache that puts Dr Helena Endrin and Jonasson on edge. Once she has recovered, Jonasson uses the cover of Idris Ghidi's cleaning round to smuggle her the promised Palm, and Salander immediately begins hacking Peter Teleborian's computer to find out what he is preparing for the trial.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist, Lisbeth Salander, Monica Figuerola·On page: Annika Giannini, Fredrik Clinton, Birger Wadensjöö, Georg Nyström, Jonas Sandberg, Hans-Erik von Rottinger, Göran Mårtensson, Torsten Edklinth, Anders Berglund, Marcus Erlander, Helena Endrin·Mentioned: Peter Teleborian, Albert Shenke
Chapter 15
Salander reads Blomkvist's draft of the book and his list of Central Questions about her childhood, and starts working out how much truth she is willing to put on record. Edklinth agrees to bring Constitutional Protection's findings to the Prime Minister's office via Blomkvist, and Figuerola briefs him on how far the Section's network reaches inside SIS. Berger starts to notice that someone at SMP is sending her poisonous anonymous messages.
POV: Mikael Blomkvist·On page: Lisbeth Salander, Jan Bublanski, Monica Figuerola, Richard Ekström, Plague, Fredrik Clinton, Birger Wadensjöö, Göran Mårtensson, Torsten Edklinth·Mentioned: Peter Teleborian, Trinity, Gunnar Björck
Part 3: Disk Crash
Chapter 16
Late at night Blomkvist sneaks out of the Millennium offices and takes a roundabout route to Salander's secret flat on Fiskargatan, where he has set up his working base since realising he is under surveillance. Over ICQ they talk through the chapters he is writing, and Salander uploads seventeen pages of new material. She also creates a new private Yahoo group called The Knights, the start of a small circle of trusted allies. Blomkvist works through the night on her hand-held connection.
On page: Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist·Mentioned: Gunnar Björck
Chapter 17
Blomkvist arrives at his Bellmansgatan landing in the evening to find Monica Figuerola sitting on the top step. She introduces herself as a Constitutional Protection officer and tells him that her superiors need to speak to him urgently and discreetly. She takes him to a safe-house meeting with Edklinth and the small team Edklinth has assembled, including Anders Berglund and Bertil Janeryd, where they agree to share information about the Section. Later, Blomkvist and Figuerola fall into bed together.
On page: Mikael Blomkvist, Torsten Edklinth, Anders Berglund, Bertil Janeryd