Our patron Irene Valliere enjoyed this book, and gives it 4**** out of 5 stars as a rating. It was also picked by a female researcher/scientist who was intereviewed by Shelagh Rogers as a great book for your summer reading.

4 of 5 Stars!

There is a good variety of characters in the book. It's emotionally touching, and has a surprising twist in the plot.

Betty Moulton

This is rated 4**** out of 5. The patron says it is a good story that has some unexpected twist.

this book tells us about albertaand has information that i didnt know before!this book helped me to learn about alberta so i know about my province!

I listened to an interview with Kurdo Baksi on CBC Radio 1 about a month ago. I am a BIG fan of Stieg Larsson's Millennium mystery series, so when I heard about this biography I had to read it! It reveals a lot about the intriguing life and character of Larsson. The book is a fairly easy read and it is only 144 pages long.

Baksi describes their relationship, which began as a work relationship then blossomed into a longstanding friendship. They worked together promoting human rights of immigrants and women as well as publishing and writing in the magazine Expo. They were plagued by death threats for many years because they spoke out against racism. Larsson learned to arrive late for his appointments, and to get off the subway earlier to evade his enemies.

Larsson is portrayed as a passionate idealist, a courageous crusader against Neo-Nazism, and a chain smoking workaholic. He worked full-time for a large Swedish news service, while managing his magazine Expo and writing articles and non-fiction books. Expo limped along financially for many years.

He was a fan of mystery and science fiction writing. At night, he began his mystery series to earn extra money. Baksi discusses his mystery writing in Chapters 9-10, and gives us insights into how he wrote the books and who some of main characters were based on. Larsson planned for 10 books in the series but he only lived to complete 3 books. Themes  of Neo-Nazism, government/ corporate corruption, and violence against women run throughout the series. Baksi revealed in the radio interview that Larsson witnessed the rape of a local girl by friends, and that he failed to intervene. He later apologized to the girl but she said she would never forgive him. Thus, Larsson drew on many of his journalistic and personal experiences to write these novels.

Overall, I really enjoyed learning about the writer and man, Stieg Larsson. It's very sad that he died at only 50 years old. He wasn't able to complete his Millennium mystery series, and he didn't experience the international fame and fortune that it brought. His valuable work as a protector of democracy and human rights in Sweden and Europe also ended too soon. I'm missing you Stieg Larsson. Thanks kindly to Kurdo Baksi for sharing his memories of Larsson with us!