Amazon.com Review Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. --Dave Callanan
Slow start, smashing finishNovember 22, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this book to be rather slow in the beginning but it began to pick up and, as of the middle, was so suspenseful that I couldn't stop reading until I finished it. Others have written of the plot so I won't be redundant but I thought that elements of it were reminiscent of Grisham's THE FIRM - and that the book would make a terrific movie. As for the writing and the place, Larsson presents a fascinating picture of male-female relations, family dysfunction, morality, media and business in modern Sweden. The writing style is deceptively simple but very effective in making his characters and their circumstances come alive. His heroine is almost an anti-heroine and reminds me in some ways of Lee Child's Jack Reacher. While it's clear that violence against women is at the heart of the book, Larsson doesn't preach at the reader but just lays out the facts. Excellent book, highly recommended.
2 to 3 stars: Problems with logic, flow and translationNovember 21, 2008 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Problems with logic: This is a "locked room" mystery; a woman disappears on an island during a brief time when all passage to and from the island is blocked, so where did she go? MURDER! Very early in the story as facts are being presented the reader easily comes to a conclusion which never occurs to the characters, the story develops and runs its course only to have the early obvious conclusion be the correct one. That is disappointing.
The key to solving the mystery relies on "a character with superpowers", in this case a teenage girl who is the best computer hacker in Sweden and is able to quickly obtain the necessary information necessary to solve the mystery which would not be obtainable otherwise (this sort of solution to me always says the author wrote them self into a corner and could not logically get out).
After the mystery is solved there is a run-on couple of chapters that are a let down.
The "detective" is a middle age journalist who has a long standing love affair with a married woman his own age; he has a love affair with an older woman; he has a love affair with a teenage girl; there is brutal sadistic rape; brutal sadistic rape revenge; sadistic incest rape; and brutal sadistic murder/rape. The translation to English is not smooth and in places jars the reader out of the story ["he dropped her off at the tunnelbana" {what is a tunnelbanna}; "Norsjo was a small town with one main street, appropriately enough called Storgatan" {what is Storgatan?]}. Annoying because the translation could have been done better.
Parts of the story flow well and are interesting, but overall I am not recommending this book. Read something by the great Norwegian author Karen Fosum if you want to read a master of Scandinavian mystery.
Slow starter with an action-packed finishNovember 20, 2008 2 out of 3 found this review helpful
While it may not be a literary masterpiece The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo makes excellent light reading and is surprisingly smart for an easy-to-read thriller.
I don't want to give away the plot at all or rehash what others have said too much, but I agree with some of the criticisms about the first half of the book. The plodding investigation of the main mystery that takes place in the beginning of the book can be a bit rough for those with limited attention spans, and it can occasionally be difficult to follow the meandering storyline.
As the various threads of the story begin to come together somewhere around the middle of the book the pace begins to pick up considerably, and reaches a headlong gallop by the end. While I had some difficulty picking the book up when I was in the beginning, by the time I reached the end I couldn't put it down.
This book won't win any literary awards and some of the discussions about technology used by the "hacker" character are a bit rough around the edges, the book is an easy and enjoyable read and the discussions of technology in the book are vague enough to be believable without being overly technical.
If you're looking for a book to read while on the train or in a plane, over Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or Christmas, this book would be a great choice. Sure, it can be a little dark at times, but it's really no worse than an episode of "Law & Order" and it's a heck of a fun ride.
A Twenty First Century Mystery Tour De ForceNovember 19, 2008 If There Wasn't Death
Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair At Styles was published in 1920. She wrote the first great mystery tour de force in 1924. Every mystery fan remembers The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Since then there have been a handful of books which stood out as outstandingly innovative while faithfully following the classic detective story rules. These are the books that leave the readers with a jolt in the solar plexus. Some do it with the climax, like Roger Ackroyd and in the 70s, Ira Levin's A Kiss Before Dying; some do it with a plot and writing that transcends the genre but staying within the rules, the unique, The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco. Now in 2008 comes Stieg Larsson (and he died before the books were published). Most of the reviewers, including the venerable Machiko Kakutani of the NY Times tend to give away the plot. I skipped the details so that when I reached about page 253, the blow to the pit of my stomach was as hard as a Muhammad Ali punch. It starts off inocuously enough. Mikael Blomkvist loses a case in court for journalistic zeal for his own publication. And we are introduced to the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander. Her horrible past is revealed later and the book goes forth on the sure footed prose of the writer, who without any over writing, maintains interest by plot creation and characters that are believable. No, Blomkvist is not a detective but he's piecing together a mystery that happened years ago, disappearance of young Harriet Vanger from a crowded party in a small island whose exit is cut off by an accident. A classic Golden Age plot, surely. Poirot had done it many times, delved into the past and came up with an answer. Blomkvist reluctantly takes the job that has baffled police and everyone else for forty years. How could anyone miss a clue after such thorough investigation? That is one of the major plotting factors that will delight any reader, particularly of the old school such as myself, who venerate the Christie,Sayers, Stout kind of writers. No more of the plot. The writing. Absolutely gorgeous without long metaphors or description of the weather. The interweaving of the characters is natural, convincing and at times produces envy. Who could have a girl friend married to someone else (happily) and would come to Blomkvist's bed when he's alone and not make any demands? The little village of Hedestad is like where Miss Marple might have lived. And the Vanger family . . . ay, tread carefully here, they have the secret . . . One wishes as the book speeds along that it was longer and the evening by the fireplace was prolonged. A highly satisfying, wonderfully literate, sophisiticated mystery that will have you squirming with delight.
Good readNovember 18, 2008 Took awhile to understand the numerous characters in the family but once I got passed the first 25+ pages and flipping back and forth to the family tree, I was totally intrigued. Very good story and couldn't wait to pick up the book to read more. Good writer and storyteller. Highly recommend.
