Two Cars

Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire (London, 2010.

Blomkvist drives to Gosseberga in a hired car, later retrieved by the police, whereas Salander drives there in a borrowed Milton Security car which is neither retrieved nor even mentioned again. On arrival, she:

"...parked behind a barn in a clump of trees about a hundred metres north of the driveway." (p. 534)

When Blomkvist arrived later, he:

"...parked next to a barn on a forest road a hundred metres to the north... He found fresh tyre tracks in the mud and decided that another car had been parked in the same place earlier, but he did not stop to consider what that might mean." (p. 568)

Why should he have considered it? But we need to. Was the Milton Security car stolen between her and his arrivals?

Chronology In Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy

Stieg Larsson, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (London, 2008).

"'Mikael Blomkvist was born on 18 January, 1960, which makes him forty-three years old.'" (p. 44)

This chapter, CHAPTER 2, like CHAPTER 1, is dated:

"Friday, 20.xii" (p. 29)

- so it is set in 2003.

CHAPTER 10 is dated:

"Thursday, 9.i - Friday, 31,i" (p. 165)

It follows that Blomkvist's forty-fourth birthday falls during this chapter although it is not mentioned.

EPILOGUE: FINAL AUDIT is dated:

"27.xi - 30.xii" (p. 513)

Thus, the novel ends on the second last day of 2004.

Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire (London, 2010).

CHAPTER 1 is dated:

"Thursday, 16.xii - Friday, 17.xii" (p. 7)

This is December, 2005. It follows that Blomkvist is now forty-five and, in just over a month, will be forty-six.

CHAPTER 2 is dated:

"Friday 17.xii" (p. 30)

In this chapter, Blomkvist says:

"'I'm going to be forty-five any day now.'" (p. 35)

Inconsistency.