DATE PUBLISHED: 2008
DATE READ: November 2009
NOTES: As a thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has it all. There is an intricate plot based on nefarious financial deals, a big industrial family with secrets to hide, a left-wing magazine with sharks circling around it and sexual politics of power and exploitation. Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative writer, is asked by the head of the Vanger family to try to find out what happened to his grand-daughter some forty years earlier when she disappeared without trace.
There follows a long complex and exacting search. In his work he is aided by the eccentric and socially inept Lisbeth Salander, the girl of the title. Lisbeth’s skills in research and computer hacking are a key to the solving of the case but Lisbeth herself remains largely a mystery. We are given only fleeting glimpses of her background and of damage done to her. But the narrative makes quite clear that she is not a girl to be messed with – and punishment will be meted out by her if and when she deems this necessary.
It is all brilliantly plotted – especially the way in which the two main characters come to be working together. Yes, it all gets a bit far-fetched in places but it is an exciting and intriguing read from beginning to end.
A cracking read. Can’t wait to read more about Lisbeth Salander in the next two of the trilogy.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
DATE PUBLISHED: 2008
DATE READ: November 2009
NOTES: As a thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has it all. There is an intricate plot based on nefarious financial deals, a big industrial family with secrets to hide, a left-wing magazine with sharks circling around it and sexual politics of power and exploitation. Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative writer, is asked by the head of the Vanger family to try to find out what happened to his grand-daughter some forty years earlier when she disappeared without trace.
There follows a long complex and exacting search. In his work he is aided by the eccentric and socially inept Lisbeth Salander, the girl of the title. Lisbeth’s skills in research and computer hacking are a key to the solving of the case but Lisbeth herself remains largely a mystery. We are given only fleeting glimpses of her background and of damage done to her. But the narrative makes quite clear that she is not a girl to be messed with – and punishment will be meted out by her if and when she deems this necessary.
It is all brilliantly plotted – especially the way in which the two main characters come to be working together. Yes, it all gets a bit far-fetched in places but it is an exciting and intriguing read from beginning to end.
A cracking read. Can’t wait to read more about Lisbeth Salander in the next two of the trilogy.
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