The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest characters

Appears from the start

The hacker and investigator at the center of the trilogy, who begins this book critically wounded after the violent confrontation that ended the previous one. Airlifted to a hospital with a bullet wound to the head, she faces not only recovery but serious criminal charges, and the authorities intend to see her declared incompetent once again. Isolated and closely guarded, she remains defiant and resourceful, determined to fight the people who have controlled and abused her for most of her life.

Appears from the start

The Millennium journalist who found Salander gravely injured at the close of the last book. Convinced of her innocence and enraged by how the system has treated her, he sets out to publish the full truth about her past and the officials responsible, marshaling the magazine's resources to clear her name and expose the cover-up around her.

Appears from the start

Editor-in-chief and co-owner of Millennium and Blomkvist's closest partner. As the book opens she is preparing to leave the magazine to take a senior editorial post at a large national daily newspaper, a major professional change that pulls her into new pressures even as the Salander story reaches its climax.

Appears from the start

Blomkvist's sister, a lawyer who specializes in women's rights and family cases. Principled and formidable in a courtroom, she is asked to take on Salander's legal defense, a role that will put her at the heart of the fight to free a difficult, distrustful client from decades of institutional control.

Appears from the start

The head of Milton Security and Salander's former employer, whose protective concern for her leads him to commit his firm's expertise to the effort to defend her and uncover the truth about those who have persecuted her.

Appears from the start

Salander's former guardian and longtime advocate, recovering from his stroke. One of the few people she trusts, he knows the outlines of her hidden history and works to support her defense and to persuade her to cooperate with those trying to help.

Also known as Zala

Appears from the start

The defected Soviet intelligence officer revealed in the previous book to be Salander's father and the boss of a criminal enterprise, long shielded by a secret cell inside the Swedish security police. Salander struck him down with an axe at the end of that book, and he begins this one hospitalized with severe injuries, a dangerous and manipulative man whose survival threatens to expose decades of official secrets.

Appears from the start

The enormous blond enforcer who works for Zalachenko and, as the previous book revealed, is Salander's half-brother. Born with a condition that leaves him unable to feel physical pain, he is a relentless and brutal killer. Having fled the scene where Salander was buried, he remains at large and lethally dangerous as this book begins.

Appears from the start

A respected child psychiatrist who oversaw Salander's confinement in a psychiatric institution when she was a girl. Outwardly a distinguished expert, he becomes a central figure in the effort to have her declared mentally incompetent, lending his professional authority to the case that she is dangerous and delusional rather than a victim.

First appears in chapter 3

A capable, physically imposing officer in the constitutional protection division of the security police, assigned to look into irregularities within her own organization. Methodical and principled, she investigates the possibility that a rogue group has been operating illegally inside the state, and her inquiry runs parallel to Blomkvist's.