Editorial Review:

Product Description:
National Bestseller

An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pieced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

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

There are many "thriller" novels on the market today that are great only in their first read. The nature of the genre is tied to suspense and in that, much is often lost in the knowledge of how the story ends. I loved Angels and Demons and the DaVinci Code the first time I read them both. After trying to re-read them, the luster was gone and they did not hold up well at all. This is where Mr. Larsson's novel excels. As I generally have to re-read books to actually remember them, this held my attention to the end the second time through.

Translated very well from the original Swedish by Reg Keeland, this book moves very quickly. The interaction of the unlikely duo of journalist-turned-outcast Mikeal Blomkvist and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander was clever and interesting. The ancillary characters were rich and were a pleasure to read. My only concern about this book is some of the techno-babble may be a bit much for those who do not use or are not familiar with computers. Some of said babble dates the book as the impressive computer specifications in 2003 are not all that impressive today. Overall, if one can gather that the technology referenced is the best and most innovative of the time, it can be overlooked.

Mystery stories are often peppered with cliché and over-the-top characters; I believe that this story does well in that the characters are generally believable. The settings are rich and the descriptions of people and place are detailed without being overdone.

It is very hard to describe much of the book without giving it away, so I will end by simply saying: If you enjoy thrillers or mysteries, this is a good book to have on the shelf.

epc

Average Rating:

Rating: - Larsson shows how it is done right. . . .
There are many "thriller" novels on the market today that are great only in their first read. The nature of the genre is tied to suspense and in that, much is often lost in the knowledge of how the story ends. I loved Angels and Demons and the DaVinci Code the first time I read them both. After trying to re-read them, the luster was gone and they did not hold up well at all. This is where Mr. Larsson's novel excels. As I generally have to re-read books to actually remember them, this held my attention to the end the second time through.

Translated very well from the original Swedish by Reg Keeland, this book moves very quickly. The interaction of the unlikely duo of journalist-turned-outcast Mikeal Blomkvist and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander was clever and interesting. The ancillary characters were rich and were a pleasure to read. My only concern about this book is some of the techno-babble may be a bit much for those who do not use or are not familiar with computers. Some of said babble dates the book as the impressive computer specifications in 2003 are not all that impressive today. Overall, if one can gather that the technology referenced is the best and most innovative of the time, it can be overlooked.

Mystery stories are often peppered with cliché and over-the-top characters; I believe that this story does well in that the characters are generally believable. The settings are rich and the descriptions of people and place are detailed without being overdone.

It is very hard to describe much of the book without giving it away, so I will end by simply saying: If you enjoy thrillers or mysteries, this is a good book to have on the shelf.

epc

Rating: - Detailed plot but prepare to suspend disbelief
Stieg Larsson has created an interesting story with an intricate plot. He does an admirable job of juggling story lines, but he does so at the expense of character development and creates some implausible scenarios along the way.

Michael Blomkvist is a journalist who has been framed for libel. After being found guilty he is sentenced to 90 days in prison (Sweden must have tough libel laws!). Shortly after being sentenced, he is approached by the patriarch of a wealthy family and asked to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, who vanished almost 40 years earlier. In the process of solving the mystery, he teams up with Lisbeth Salander, an investigator and computer hacker extraordinaire.

The meticulous process by which Blomkvist and Salander sift through the evidence makes for compelling reading. Larsson's plot has a lot of moving parts but he manages to keep it all together. Unfortunately, with all the focus on plot, there is very little character development and it is sometimes hard to understand what makes Blomkvist tick. There are also implausibilities that are impossible to overlook. Salander has every reason to mistrust men, but when she first meets Blomkvist, she allows him to waltz into her apartment, no questions asked. Blomkvist's daughter--who is about the same age as Harriet at the time she disappeared--appears to exist solely to decipher a clue involving an obscure bible reference. Otherwise, Blomkvist apparently never thinks of her.

This book was a page turner for me, despite the frequent need to suspend disbelief. And Larsson attempts to call attention to the issue of violence against women by citing statistics about the prevalence of the problem in Sweden. However, the book itself contains more than a few depictions and accounts of over-the-top violence against women. I think reasonable minds can differ on whether the book itself furthers the author's goals.

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Rating: - I want to be Salander
The twisting, detailed plot holds your interest as it builds to a crescendo. It is well written, A little boggy in the beginning. Character development is rich; you understand and want to be these characters as you become familiar with them

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Rating: - A compelling read
Gritty but.
In spite of its grittiness in places and its in places insufficently worked out characters and plot versus in other places too lengthy descriptions, I was surprisingly compelled by this book.
Would Mikael's life be every man's fanatasy?

I wonder.
Loved Salander...

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Rating: - Meandering and pointless
I listened to this book by downloading it from [...]. It turns out that the only way I was able to get through it was because I was only listening to it, which I imagine is slightly less aggravating. I am utterly awestruck at the positive and glowing reviews of this novel. I have multiple issues with the book, but will confine them to a handful here.

First, the book doesn't really seem to know what it want to be. It is a murder mystery, commentary on life of women in Sweden, romance, a character piece? One never knows because it tries to handle all of these areas, and does so poorly.

Second, the author goes into excruciating detail about meaningless nonsense that has nothing to do with the story (the type of sandwiches eaten or computer purchased) but glosses over the relevant and interesting aspects of the book. In one instance, a computer is hacked without an adequate and believable description of the methodology. The author also fails to appreciate the capacity of the internet, internet connections and firewalls, which presents a large loophole in the hacking aspect of the book. It seems that the author did very little research on this topic.

Third, there is an exhaustive backstory developed of the Vanger family which is unnecessary, but takes up ALOT of space in the book.

Lastly, the book is slow-moving, monotonous and unbelievable. The characters lacked any depth for me, and all seemed pretty one-dimensional. The sole saving grace I found was the descriptions of the thought-processes of Lisbeth. Though i enjoyed these areas, which were few and far between, I wouldn't wish this book on anyone. Pick something from Amazon at random and you will get a better story.

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