Men Who Hate Women...and the Girl Who Will Kick Thier Asses...

 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

            Reporter Mikael Blomkvist is having problems: his latest magazine story, an attempt to bring to light a corrupt Swedish businessman backfired, with Blomkvist sued for libel and having to serve a prison sentence.  With his journalistic reputation shot, his magazine foundering, and his bank accounts dwindling due to the liable trial, Blomkvist could use some help.   Blomkvist seems to be the author's projection of himself: both are roughly the same age and share the same occupation: journalists for left-of-center magazines in Sweden).

            Enter Henrik Vanger, the elder, ailing industrialist living on the family estate located on a remote island in northern Sweden.  Henrik hires Blomkvist to write a biography of the Vanger family; however, that is only cover for the real assignment.  Nearly forty years beforehand, Vanger’s beloved niece, Harriet disappeared from the family compound on the same day as a terrible auto accident blocked the island from the mainland.  It’s known that Harriet was on the island before the crash, but no trace of her has ever been spotted since then, and Vanger wants Blomkvist to discover who killed Harriet, despite forty years having passed by.

            What follows is a truly gripping story as Mikael Blomkvist tries to track down the long what happened to Harriet Vengar on that fateful day many, many years ago.  Working with a list of people who were on the island at the time of Harriet’s disappearance, Blomkvist moves to the Vengar’s estate for a year trying to discover who killed the young girl, while working under the cover of making a chronicle of the Vengar family.

            Working with Blomkvist is the titular “girl,” a young, tattooed social misfit/crack researcher Lisbeth Slander.  Lisbeth herself seems to hold dark secrets to her past and virtually steals the novel from Blomkvist.  Salander, whose backstory is not really entierly reveled until the subsequent stories, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, is more interesting in part because we don't have much of a background story on what happened to her prior to the novel.   Not only does the reader know little about her past, the closest things to "friends" she has know little about her, either.  With the book’s violent tendencies, especially towards women, it’s not too surprising that for the English translation the title was changed to refer to the fascinating Lisbeth Slander character rather than the original Swedish (less Salander-referenced) title, Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women).  

Just from the film's poster, who looks to be the more interesting character: the rumpled, 40-something journalist, or the girl who looks like she's not to be messed with or she'll kick your ass?

           Honestly, the biggest problem with this book is the beginning.  It’s slow.  Almost painfully so.  The first 50 or so pages are very dry, dealing with a story that reporter-protagonist Mikael Blomkvist wrote which got him involved in a liable case.  This background seemed to go on forever and seemed to get a bit more intense into various business dealings than really was needed.  My guess is this stems from the author having drafted this for his own pleasure and that he was a reporter himself, but page after page of how a business was investigated in what felt to be total exposition almost got me to put the book down had I not previously heard so many good things about the story.  I was unsurprised when I saw the film that this section was all but cut out of the film.

            Despite feeling that the book starting out slow, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a tense read.  Reading it, I kept thinking that this felt like the kind of story a writer would draft for their own amusement, full of details, characterization, and hints at backstory to be included in sequels.  It very well could have been edited a bit tighter, but seeing as there will only be three to maybe four books published by the author in the series, I didn't mind the extra padding since I liked the story. 


           While it’s a little violent in parts, it’s an enjoyable novel and the only book of the Millennium Trilogy that could possibly be read as a standalone story. I will definitely look forward to reading the sequels and watching the Swedish films based on the stories. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.