Product Description

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse, no witnesses, no evidence. But her uncle, Henrik, is convinced that she was murdered by someone in her own family - the deeply dysfunctional Vanger clan. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired to investigate, but when he links Harriet's disappearance to a string of gruesome murders from forty years ago, he needs a competent assistant - and he gets one: computer hacker Lisbeth Salander - a tattoed, truculent, angry girl who rides a motorbike like a Hell's Angel and handles makeshift weapons with the skill born of remorseless rage. This unlikely pair form a fragile bond as they delve into the sinister past of this island-bound, tightly-knit family. But the Vangers are a secretive lot, and Mikael and Lisbeth are about to find out just how far they're prepared to go to protect themselves - and each other.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10655 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-10
• Original language: Swedish
• Binding: Hardcover
• 572 pages

Review
Stieg Larsson is the best Swedish crime writer of the decade - Kristianstadbladeta violently entertaining trilogy...may it never end - Arbetarbladet A huge, 500-plus-page opus, a multilayered, multi-character tale by a writer of some considerable power. Full of social conscience and compassion, with great insight into the nature of moral corruption, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo just knocked me out. During the time I had my nose stuck in its pages, I was thoroughly consumed by the work, and in those periods when I had to put the book down, I found myself grumpy and anxious to return to Larsson's narrative A... when I finally put the book down, I was still unable to sleep, my head filled with the high-definition world that this author has crafted A... already I'm thinking this could be remembered as the best crime novel of 2008 A... This book shows how exhilarating crime fiction can be.Ali Karim, The Rap Sheet website.http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2007/12/case-of-grand-larsson.html""A...a publishing sensation, an accomplished crime writer who seemingly came from nowhere A...a memorable debut and deserves most of the hype with which it is being published in this country A... Crime fiction has seldom needed to salute and mourn such a stellar talent as Larsson's in the same breath - Sunday TimesThe ballyhoo is fully justified...At over 500 pages this hardly sagged...The novel scores on every front - character, story, atmosphere - The TimesWhat a cracking novel! I haven't read such a stunning thriller debut for years. The way Larsson interweaves his two stories had me in thrall from beginning to end. Brilliantly written and totally gripping - Minette WaltersAs vivid as bloodstains on snow - and a perfect one-volume introduction to the unique strengths of Scandinavian crime fiction - Lee Child

First U.S. publication for a deceased Swedish author (1954 - 2004); this first of his three novels, a bestseller in Europe, is a labored mystery.It's late 2002. Mikael Blomkvist, reputable Stockholm financial journalist, has just lost a libel case brought by a notoriously devious tycoon. He's looking at a short jail term and the ruin of his magazine, which he owns with his best friend and occasional lover, Erika Berger. The case has brought him to the attention of Henrik Vanger, octogenarian, retired industrialist and head of the vast Vanger clan. Henrik has had a report on him prepared by Lisbeth Salander, the eponymous Girl, a freaky private investigator. The 24-year-old Lisbeth is a brilliant sleuth, and no wonder: She's the best computer hacker in Sweden. Henrik hires Mikael to solve an old mystery, the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet, in 1966. Henrik is sure she was murdered; every year the putative killer tauntingly sends him a pressed flower on his birthday (Harriet's custom). He is equally sure one of the Vangers is the murderer. They're a nasty bunch, Nazis and ne'er-do-wells. There are three story lines here: The future of the magazine, Lisbeth's travails (she has a sexually abusive guardian) and, most important, the Harriet mystery. This means an inordinately long setup. Only at the halfway point is there a small tug of excitement as Mikael breaks the case and enlists Lisbeth's help. The horrors are legion: Rape, incest, torture and serial killings continuing into the present. Mikael is confronted by an excruciating journalistic dilemma, resolved far too swiftly as we return to the magazine and the effort to get the evil tycoon, a major miscalculation on Larsson's part. The tycoon's empire has nothing to do with the theme of violence against women which has linked Lisbeth's story to the Vanger case, and the last 50 pages are inevitably anticlimactic.Juicy melodrama obscured by the intricacies of problem-solving. (Kirkus Reviews)

Sunday Times
...a publishing sensation...Crime fiction has seldom needed to salute and mourn such a stellar talent as Larsson's in the same breath

Minette Walters
What a cracking novel! I haven't read such a stunning thriller debut for years...Brilliantly written and totally gripping

Customer Reviews

Absolutely brilliant - it has everything and more
I was recommended this author and started the book with an open mind but with some reservations. BUT it was brilliant - well written - not just a crime book, fascinating people and marvellous plot. I was really sold on this author only to find out that he only managed to write a few books before his untimely death - what a disappointment. The world was robbed of a truely good writer.....

A big juicy satisfying read
This a big, complex, entertaining read. There are three plots running in parallel which interlink with and complicate each other. This means the book has room for a classic detective story dealing with a decades old disappearance, and also strands delving into the complications in the lives of the two main characters - a financial journalist and the eponymous girl with the dragon tattoo.

I loved it, and am looking forward to publication of the second novel in the trilogy early next year. Recommended if you like a good mystery.

Formulaic...
This book has sold 5 million copies. What makes a book sell 5 million copies? Judging by this, the formula is: a fairly mainstream plot, some mild sex, a so-so conspiracy, and a style of writing that neither jars nor excites.

Let me first say that there is nothing actually wrong with this book. Aside from being much too long - common and acceptable in a first novel - there is nothing that will make you throw this book across a room. Nor, in my view, will you be riveted. It is like a three-part thriller on television, where you'll watch the final part if you happen to be in the room, but you wouldn't break a hot date to see it.

Larsson does a fair job of dissecting and explaining the `corporate fraud' part of the storyline, but the main problem is that this is simply a nebulous, almost victimless crime. He fails to bring it down to a human scale, and so robs it of any emotional value. Because of this, the story produces no drive or energy to push the other sub-plots forward. Thus, it sort of falls forward of its' own accord, without feeling like it has genuine momentum.

Some of the characters are clichés. The elderly patriarch, for example, has been done to death. The tattooed girl herself is actually the most interesting character, although less `enigmatic' than all the characters seem to believe. I did feel, though, that Larsson chickened out of making her genuinely dark, and she failed to impart a sense of foreboding that should have been there.

Is this a great thriller? No, it is not even close. It is a long, slightly rambling effort by an author who is finding his feet. On its' own merits, it is mediocre, and your money would be better spent on a dozen alternative authors. Thrillers about corporate fraud need to be brought down to a taut, human, emotional level, or they are simply exercises in writing essays. For me, Larsson fails to achieve the correct scale or emotional connection.