The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is really good. It’s totally deserving of the worldwide acclaim it went through when it came out. The mystery, the characters, the interplay of plots all work well together. If you haven’t already, I would strongly urge you to check it out.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a book about a 50-year-old disappearance of a member of one of the richest families in Sweden. It simultaneously digs through their past, with disgraced writer Mikael Blomkvist brought on to write the history of the family by retired CEO Harold Vanger, as well as deal with their present, as Blomkvist is tasked with also finding out what happened to Harriet Vanger when she disappeared, and who is responsible. Harold believes it is one of his own family members who is still alive and among them in the present. Blomkvist has to deal with all of this while also trying to save his struggling magazine. This mixture of plots creates a combination of suspense, mystery, and thriller that is hard to beat.

While the plot can seem confusing and intimidating, you quickly grow accustomed to the world Larsson creates. It lives and breathes, with characters hopping in and out, although that’s not a bad thing. The story is compelling and never slows down, and the characters help facilitate that movement. Blomkvist’s relationship with at least one character is always changing, which adds to the mystery, as he doesn’t know where he stands with any of the suspects.

Of course, I can’t write about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo without talking about her. Lisbeth Salander is an extremely prolific hacker who, while appearing in the novel significantly less than Blomkvist, is just as or more significant to the plot. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t read it, but she is as much of a main character as he is.

Since this is a mystery, I won’t talk about the plot too much, but let’s just say it delivers and then some. The mystery(-ies) are all very satisfying to figure out, with no real “fast one” being pulled on the audience. Blomkvist is essentially the reader (and writer) stand in.

On that note, the one thing I didn’t like about the book is how much of a writer stand-in Blomkvist is. He writes for a magazine like Larsson, is the same age, and basically every woman in this book can’t keep their hands off him. It was just tiring after a while. Still, only a minor gripe.

In all, definitely read this book. The story, the characters, and the setting are all top notch and will have you on the edge of your seat. Or at least flipping through the pages as fast as you can. It’s super fast paced without being confusing or bloated with characters. One of the modern day thriller/mystery classics. Lives up to the hype.

PS: forgive any name misspellings, there’s bound to be one.