The other night I searched my bookcase for something to read that wasn’t on my Kindle. I chose The Girl Who Played with Fire , the second book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series. I had read the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , when it first hit big in the United States. I loved it. I’m not sure why I didn’t continue the series at the time, but maybe it was because I had seen both the Swedish and American versions of the filmed trilogy and decided to wait. I contemplated why these books became almost instant bestsellers. The noir feeling to the stories, high degree of tension, and well-drawn characters are the elements of page-turners I love to read, but why did this particular series generate six movies and bestseller status? The answer is simple: the “Girl.” Lisbeth Salander is without a doubt the most intriguing character I’ve ever read. She’s an anti-social, computer-hacking genius with a photographic memory who is probably on the high Asperger’s scale of autism...