The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first suspense novel written by Stieg Larsson, probably the most popular and most praised instalment of the Millennium series. In 2008 Stieg Larsson was the second best-selling author of the world, his books has been international best-sellers ever since.
The character of Lisbeth Salander alone is worth reading Millennium series. And there are a lot more that make it worth reading. Several, several twists, a brilliant plotting, tension, fine characterisation, detailed graphic violence (also on a female’s part, which is unusual in thriller genre) – one can find all in the page-turner The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist and publisher of a political magazine Millennium in Stockholm, lost a libel case against a Swedish tycoon Hans-Erik Wennerström. He is sentenced to pay a fine and spend three months in jail. He also resigns from his position. On the other hand, he gets an unusual offer from another businessman, Henrik Vanger – who secretly hired a maverick private investigator, Lisbeth Salander, to find out more about Blomkvist’s past, concerning both his private life and his career. Salander is a fragile and aloof twenty-four years old girl, exceedingly intelligent and an expert in hacking and investigating, a lonely fighter who likes to play according to her own rules. She presumably has Asperger syndrome. When she gets a new legal guardian, a lawyer, Nils Bjurman, the man rapes her. After the second sexual attack, Salander fights back, assaults Bjurman and blackmails him by releasing a video about him raping her if he refuses giving her full control to her own bank accounts.
Vanger offers Blomkvist a considerable sum of money and evidence against Wennerström. In return, he asks him to write the history of the Vangers – however, actually he wants to know what happened to his niece Harriet who vanished thirty-six years ago. He suspects that one of the family members murdered her.
Blomkvist moves to the small island of Hedeby where the Vangers live, and gets to know the members of the extended family. Blomkvist finds out that someone hacks his computer and personal data. He considers Salander talented, thus the two work together, and they become friends with benefits. They find Harriet’s diary and a list of vanished women – and they learn something terrible about the Vangers…
The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo was adapted into a movie in 2009, Salander was played by Noomi Rapace. A Hollywood adaptation is in progress. Brad Pitt was asked to play Blomkvist, fortunately Daniel Craig was chosen in the end (which is lucky for the viewers: it would have been hard to let such a plot go down the wrong way, but Brad Pitt as Mikael Blomkvist could have done the trick).
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