The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson)

Book Synopsis
Financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist has made his living uncovering the corrupt and crooked practices of Stockholm's leading financiers in his magazine, Millennium. But one expose unexpectedly backfires, and Blomkvist's reputation is in tatters. When he is offered an investigative job by powerful industrialist Henrik Vanger, he is in no position to refuse. But he is surprised to find it has nothing to do with high finance - this time, it is a case of murder.

Many years ago, Henrik's niece, Harriet, disappeared during a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the Vangers. No-one saw her leave the island, and no body was ever found. Even so, Henrik is convinced that she was murdered by a member of his own family - the tightly knit but dysfunctional Vanger clan. Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander set out to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

The first book in the Millenium Trilogy, this book and the two that followed were published soon after Stieg Larsson's death in 2004.

Ups
Set in a remote town in the north of Sweden, the setting is unconventional and reeks of a locked room murder mystery, with the members of the family who were present on the day Harriet Vanger disappeared. The two lead characters Blomkvist and Salander are beautifully depicted, with all their strong attributes as well as their flaws, and were very believable. The story flows and unfolds well, and although the murder mystery is the key theme, it is also cleverly intervowen with Blomkvist's personal vendetta with the businessman who put his journalistic reputation into tatters.

Downs
Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I did not think this book merited the attention and hype it generated and the number of copies it sold worldwide. Sure, it was a pleasurable read, though it could have done with more rigorous editing, as it was at times too long winded and destroyed the page-turner effect the author was clearly trying to accomplish. The translation into English was generally competent, though there were a couple of instances where the point being made seemed to be lost in translation. I also felt the ending was clumsy, the murder mystery was solved, and yet there were still over a 100 pages to go which made it a bit of an anticlimax. The last chapters of the book concluded the story of Blomkvist's personal vendetta. I felt the book would have been more impactful if the two endings could have been achieved simultaneously.

Overall a good read, but I don't think I will be bothering with the other two in the series.

Rating
Language & Style - 7 / 10
Memorability - 6 / 10
Re-readability - 3 / 10
Pageturner factor - 6 / 10

Overall - 6 / 10