ISBN: 9781847245458 (UK)
Generally I don't read a lot of crime fiction. But once every couple of years I'll pick up mainstream thriller just for a change. When I was working in a book shop last Christmas, Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy caught my eye. Firstly because the titles sounded strange to me: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. When I looked into the books, I learned that they were translated from Swedish, and that the author had died unexpectedly shortly after submitting the finished manuscripts of all three novels to his publisher in 2004. This, along with the fact that the books were enormously popular, intrigued me enough to want to read them.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tells the story of Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist from Stockholm who has just been convicted of libel for an exposé he authored about crooked captain of industry Hans-Erik Wennerström. Discredited and depressed, Blomkvist is about to step down from his position at Millennium, a magazine he co-founded, when he is contacted by aging industrialist Henrik Vanger. Vanger offers him a job in the secluded island town of Hedestad, writing a chronicle about the Vanger dynasty, and secretly investigating the 1966 murder of Henrik's teenage niece, Harriet.
Enter the girl with the dragon tattoo: Lisbeth Salander. She is 24, has no academic qualifications (though plenty of tattoos), and barely possesses the social skills to function in society. She also has a photographic memory and is the best researcher at Milton Security. Not to mention she's an elite hacker and can break into almost any network in the world.
When Salander and Blomkvist are thrown together in the investigation of Harriet's disappearance, they find that the case isn't as cold as it first appeared to be. In fact, someone in the extensive Vanger clan is trying to foil their investigation, and that person happens to be a sadistic murderer.
Something I really enjoyed about this book was the simple, straightforward narrative style. It's written in short chunks, with the focus switching back and forth between characters, mainly Salander and Blomkvist. The attention to detail is sometimes so minute that it's amusing. Everything is identified according to brand name, and the specs of each computer are thoroughly related, from the size of the hard drive to the width of the screen. I was once told in creative writing class not to identify items by brand name. However, in this book, with Larsson's precise narrative style, it seems to work perfectly.
Another thing I liked: unlike some of the other crime novels that I've read, this book has strong, deep characters. The two main characters are seriously flawed, but that makes them all the more sympathetic. Salander especially comes across as a sympathetic character. She is tough and super intelligent, so she can take care of herself (using violence when necessary), but her social problems make her isolated, and an easy target for those in positions of authority. It's not made clear what Salander's disability is - she refuses to cooperate with any attempts to diagnose her - but Blomkvist speculates that it may be Asperger's Syndrome. I think that Larsson using an autistic character not only as a main character, but also as the story's heroine, is fantastic.
There were only two things I didn't like in the novel. One was a description of a rape, which I found disturbing. The other was an animal coming to harm, which I hate under any circumstances. Overall though, despite these two things, I liked the book. It's fast-paced, thrilling, and has the right amount of suspense to keep the reader hooked until the very end. If you're looking for a good summer vacation book, this could very well be it.
Something I really enjoyed about this book was the simple, straightforward narrative style. It's written in short chunks, with the focus switching back and forth between characters, mainly Salander and Blomkvist. The attention to detail is sometimes so minute that it's amusing. Everything is identified according to brand name, and the specs of each computer are thoroughly related, from the size of the hard drive to the width of the screen. I was once told in creative writing class not to identify items by brand name. However, in this book, with Larsson's precise narrative style, it seems to work perfectly.
Another thing I liked: unlike some of the other crime novels that I've read, this book has strong, deep characters. The two main characters are seriously flawed, but that makes them all the more sympathetic. Salander especially comes across as a sympathetic character. She is tough and super intelligent, so she can take care of herself (using violence when necessary), but her social problems make her isolated, and an easy target for those in positions of authority. It's not made clear what Salander's disability is - she refuses to cooperate with any attempts to diagnose her - but Blomkvist speculates that it may be Asperger's Syndrome. I think that Larsson using an autistic character not only as a main character, but also as the story's heroine, is fantastic.
There were only two things I didn't like in the novel. One was a description of a rape, which I found disturbing. The other was an animal coming to harm, which I hate under any circumstances. Overall though, despite these two things, I liked the book. It's fast-paced, thrilling, and has the right amount of suspense to keep the reader hooked until the very end. If you're looking for a good summer vacation book, this could very well be it.
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