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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Sep 2008, 480 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2009, 480 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Kim Kovacs
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A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story and financial intrigue.
A Sensational #1 Bestseller – Now a Major Motion Picture In Theaters March 2010.
A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue.
It’s about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.
It’s about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance . . . and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age—and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it—who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism—and an unexpected connection between themselves.
It’s a contagiously exciting, stunningly intelligent novel about society at its most hidden, and about the intimate lives of a brilliantly realized cast of characters, all of them forced to face the darker aspects of their world and of their own lives.
A Friday in November
It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on the same day–which was something of an irony under the circumstances. The old policeman was sitting with his coffee, waiting, expecting the call.
“It arrived.”
“What is it this year?”
“I don’t know what kind it is. I’ll have to get someone to tell me what it is. It’s white.”
“No letter, I suppose.”
“Just the flower. The frame is the same kind as last year. One of those do-it-yourself ones.”
“Postmark?”
“Stockholm.”
“Handwriting?”
“Same as always, all in capitals. Upright, neat lettering.”
With that, the subject was exhausted...
While the mystery at the center of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo wraps up very satisfactorily, the novel itself does not. That's not to say that the book's ending is poor; it is, in fact, one of the most appropriate endings this reviewer has encountered. The problem is that it will without doubt leave the reader wanting more. Fortunately for his fans, Stieg Larsson completed two more books in the Millenium series before his untimely death. This is one book that lives up to its hype, and it is likely to get as much attention in America as it has in Europe since its publication there. Highly recommended...continued
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(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Stieg Larsson
Swedish author Stieg
Larsson's life is every bit
as fascinating as that of
any fictional character. In
fact, Mikael Blomkvist, the
protagonist of The Millenium
Series, bears many
similarities to his creator.
Karl Stig-Erland Larsson was
born on August 15, 1954 in
Västerbotten, in northern
Sweden. He was raised in the
countryside by his
grandparents until his
grandfather's death in 1962
(despite considerable
research, including
questions to ...
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