Brad Marley

There may not be a book premise more ridiculous than one involving super smart vines with the ability to perfectly mimic a chirping cell phone, for instance, in order to lure unsuspecting adventure hunters to their gory deaths. But try reading this book two weeks after a newborn arrives on little to no sleep, and then tell me how ridiculous it sounds.

Terrifyingly ridiculous, that's how.

Scott Smith's The Ruins tells the story of a group of young adults on vacation in Mexico who follow a German man they've recently become acquainted with into the jungle to help find his brother who was supposed to meet a woman on an architectural dig, but failed to return.

Armed with only limited food, some hard liquor, and their wits, they soon find themselves terribly unprepared to face the most terrifying literary situation I've ever read (and I've read Gerald's Game.) And, as any group of well-fed, privileged human beings would do when faced with scorching heat and maniacal foliage, this one deteriorates quickly, but not in a way you would readily imagine, or else you would be writing horror novels.

I won't go into great detail in case you want to scare yourself silly, but a large chunk of the survival situation involves one character's hands-on quest to find the sickness that has invaded his body.

If I have not yet completely scared you away from reading this book, here are a couple things that will enhance your experience:

1. Only read in the daytime.

2. Make sure you have had ample sleep (i.e. wait until your kids have gotten past the newborn stage.)

3. Remember it's just a book.

But I suppose if you're into reading horror novels, the horror is the best part, and this book certainly delivers. 

If The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a surprisingly delectable, medium-rare filet mignon that got better with each bite devoured, then the The Girl Who Played With Fire was the chef's attempt to replicate the original experience.

Unfortunately for chefs and authors alike, the anticipation of a repeat performance is rarely, if ever, surpassed by the second helping.

That is not to say, however, that The Girl Who Played With Fire was a terrible book.  Quite the contrary.  But when the book that introduced me to a character as complex and intriguing as Lisbeth Salander forced me to remain on the couch until I plowed through to the end, well, the sequel definitely had its work cut out for it.

The second installment of the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy takes place roughly two years after the events of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

When Millennium magazine is approached by a freelance writer to publish a book on Sweden's underground sex trade industry that will implicate some of the country's top officials for their participation in this horrific past time, the editorial staff thinks they have another piece of investigative work on their hands comparable to the success of their fictional Wennerstrom affair coverage. 

But, as is often the case in the world of fiction, something goes wrong, and newly renowned Millennium reporter, Michael Blomquist, feels it is his journalistic duty to skirt the police investigation to solve a crime that Salander, and other characters from the first book, figure prominently in.

I usually judge books on how easy they are to walk away from mid-read, and it was not difficult to put this one aside for a day before returning to the story.

Unlike the first installment, where the story revved up about forty pages in and never stopped escalating, the second seemed to stay stuck in neutral, with an occasional uptick in gear that hinted at a top speed that never materialized.

Luckily for those of us reading the series, the third and final book, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, is scheduled to be released in October, and I hold out hope that the plodding pace of the middle entry was a necessity, because the first one was too good and showed too much promise to be an anomaly.

But who am I kidding?  Even if this book was the literary equivalent of an overcooked, dried out T-bone, I would still line up for thirds, come October.