Set in Stockholm and a small country town in the north of
Sweden, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO tells the mesmerizing story
of disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who has been charged with
and convicted of libel after writing a story about sketchy
financier Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. Blomkvist’s conviction
shakes him to his professional core and even threatens
Millennium, the magazine for which he is publisher. To add
insult to injury, he knows he was right about Wennerstrom --- if
only he could prove it. But with things looking exceedingly bleak,
he tells his partner and sometime girlfriend, Erika Berger, that
he’s going to leave Stockholm and accept a curious job
offer.

Fading business tycoon Henrik Vanger, now 82 and living in
semi-retirement in the small northern community of Hedestad,
summons Blomkvist to his home and lays out a rather strange
opportunity for him. Vanger wants to hire him for a two-fold
purpose: first, to write a chronicle of the Vanger family; and
second, to solve the mystery of one of the darkest moments in that
family’s history --- the murder of his great-niece Harriet in
1966. But why is Vanger proposing this to him? As strange as it
seems, Blomkvist starts to seriously consider the offer. He is sort
of persona non grata in the journalism business at the
moment, and most tempting of all, Vanger has offered him
confidential information that will be given to him after one year
of his work and research on the Vanger project --- information
guaranteed to bring down Wennerstrom once and for all.

But the endless reams of paperwork and police files, not to
mention chasing down leads, proves exhausting for Blomkvist. He
realizes that he needs to call in a crackerjack assistant to help
him research. And who better than the woman who gave such a
thorough background check on him to Vanger? The sullen but
street-smart Lisbeth Salander, who, with her dyed raven-black hair
“looked as though she had just emerged from a week-long orgy
with a gang of hard rockers,” is brought into the mix to aid
in his investigation. Salander, although 24, is a ward of the
state, which has deemed her mentally unstable and therefore must be
looked after by a guardian. Her old state-appointed guardian had
been a wonderful, stabilizing force in her very sad life.

However, with his sudden illness, a new, less wonderful guardian
had been appointed, and soon he’s making unwanted advances.
Salander must try to find a way to navigate this precarious
situation, because one bad report from this new sentinel and she
can be placed in a home against her will. Made tough by an even
tougher childhood, Salander is a star researcher but keeps mostly
to herself. With her multiple tattoos and piercings, she exudes a
kind of odd charm. Her boss at the security firm likens her to a
“nagging itch, repellent and at the same time
tempting.” Despite her anti-social ways, she has a knack of
ferreting out information so thoroughly that Blomkvist invites her
to join the investigation. This unlikely pair sets about finding
what happened to Vanger all those years ago.

The original title for this thriller was MEN WHO HATE WOMEN. The
decision to go with an allusion to the enigmatic and unforgettable
character of Lisbeth Salander was a wise one. Larsson has been a
well-known and sometimes controversial journalist and crime
novelist in his native Sweden, and THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
is only the first in a series he wrote before his sudden death from
a heart attack in 2004 at age 50. But his untimely passing
hasn’t stopped Larsson from making headlines. Apart from this
series being a huge bestseller in Sweden and other parts of Europe,
Larsson’s estate is in the midst of a fierce battle. Since he
died without a will, his family received his estate and his live-in
girlfriend of 20 years received nothing. That is, until it was
recently revealed that the girlfriend maintains possession of
Larsson’s computer, which happens to have his last
unpublished book on it. And this is what is at the heart of the
legal brouhaha --- the new, never-before-published novel from a
crime-writing master.

Stieg Larsson was named one of the “50 Crime Writers One
Must Read Before You Die” by the UK paper The
Telegraph, and it’s easy to see why. This atmospheric
thriller is so tautly plotted and full of well-rounded, albeit
flawed, characters who jump right off the page. It might feel a tad
slow in the beginning (though that can be chalked up to European
writers being more amenable to taking their time), but once the
story hits its stride, the reader is riveted. The Swedish setting
is moody and evocative of thrillers like SMILLA’S SENSE OF
SNOW. And because of the remote island setting, it makes terrific
use of that wonderful whodunit element, the “locked room
mystery.”

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO will win fans among all types of
readers, even those who never thought a thriller could leave such
an indelible mark on them.