The first half of Stieg Larsson's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO presents two separate lives in Sweden: Mikael Blomkvist, a 40-something journalist convicted of libel, and Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old eccentric computer hacker working for a security firm.
By about the halfway point in the book, Blomkvist and Salander join forces to find a murderer of a member of the Vanger family who disappeared 40 years ago. The Vangers, including husbands, wives, adult children, cousins, aunts, and uncles, are all very rich and very strange. Together they own a worldwide corporation, and they mostly hate each other. Blomkvist and Salanlder uncover their deep, dark secrets, discovering secrets much worse than they bargained for, much worse with every page.
The book is billed as a mystery/thriller. But mystery/thriller lovers should be warned: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO contains only a small portion of what I would call "thriller." That is near the end of the book when Blomkvist, after figuring things out and confronting someone, discovers the hard way (the really, really hard way) that, as bad as what he figured, it was way, way worse.
The majority of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is mystery, not thriller. Sometimes the mystery is tedious as Blomkvist and Salander search and research old news clippings, picture archives, old snapshots, others' writeups, etc. But in spite of that, it's a page turner, probably because of Larsson's story-telling skill.
The book ends with an obvious enticement, the promise of continuation of the story. And, sure enough, Larsson left enough material for three books. The second in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE (presumably the same girl), just came out.
The author, Larsson, died of a heart attack at the age of 50 before this book was published, 2005 in Sweden, 2008 in the United States. According to Wikipedia, he left a will declaring that his assets should be left to the Communist Workers League. I wouldn't have been happy about the money I spent on this book going to the Communist Workers League, so it's a good thing Swedish law said that was invalid because the will was not witnessed. Larsson's assets went, instead, to his family.
I didn't notice any of Larsson's political leanings in this book and, believe me, I looked for them. At worst you could say the book is anti-big business. Then again, big business is shown with both good guys and bad guys.
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Comments: 9
I've been wanting to read this for awhile (so many books, so little time...sigh). There has been quite a buzz surrounding this book, although I never heard to stuff about where he wanted to donate the proceeds. Great review!
I, too, have been meaning to read this book for nearly a year. The reason it took so long for me was a combination: partly for the same reason you haven't read it yet, partly because I wanted the hard cover and the hard cover is so expensive. I finally got a 40-percent-off coupon for Borders plus a $10 gift card, so it was a good price.
Thanks for posting your review to the Gather group, Bookin'. It's featured this week.
It sounds like an interesting read, as I do enjoy mysteries. Right now, I'm reading a mystery and just started it, so don't know if its good yet.
What are you reading? Maybe I read it.
Murder She Wrote Madison Avenue Shoot by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain
Nope, I never read that one. But I've read lots of mysteries/thrillers.
I read this book and enjoyed it a lot. I can't wait for the other two to comes out.
The second book in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, is out now.