Swedish author Stiegg Larsson's international bestseller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, published posthumously along with two other books in his Millenium trilogy, has generated much interest and excitement since its release as well as heated negotiations for its film rights. Listed as "crime, mystery, and thriller", the genre is a popular choice for readers and movie enthusiasts alike.
Since I don't like seeing movies that are based on books until I read the book, I reserved all three books at the library. Unfortunately, the second book became available first and so I have had to read the books out of order. This was initially a difficult task as I had no background knowledge about the series. I didn't know the characters, the setting or even the important plot points of the first novel. Also, being set in Sweden, a country that I have very little knowledge about, I found it hard to connect to the names of places, people and events mentioned in the book. Pronunciation was definitely a challenge as Swedish is not a common language of study for most people. Nevertheless, I persevered, finding that the extensive detail of the writing and the careful description of each character as they were introduced, although tedious at times, aided my understanding.
Overall, this was an exciting, fast-paced adventure with many twists and turns and unexpected surprises. The main character, Lisbeth Salander, seems to fit the mold of the classic anti-hero, fighting for justice outside of the regular system, which definitely puts herself and others in life-threatening situations. Each chapter is labelled by date of the events that occur. Within the chapter, the focus changes repeatedly to divulge information about each of the characters and their progress in the investigation. In this way, all of the necessary background information about the case is provided and it is left to the reader to decide how all the different threads will be tied together in the end. The conclusion is fairly predictable but leaves the reader anxious to begin the third novel. I really enjoyed this suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat crime novel!
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