The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo

Few crime novels in the market feature their female protagonist, who has survived a serious injustice and yet manages to dust it off and use their skills to help solve crime. This is probably why The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson became such a bestseller in Europe and the US. This novel, the first of the three books of the Millennium trilogy, was published in Swedish (2005) but was translated to English (2008) by Reg Keeland. The book was followed by The Girl who Played with Fir” and finally The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The story opens with Mikael Blomkvist smarting from a humiliating defeat from Hans Erik Wennerstrom. The latter sued him for libel, being the publisher of Swedish political magazine, Millennium, which had featured allegations against the industrialist without proof. Henrik Vanger appears in the picture and promises Blomkvist payback against Wennerstrom in exchange for information. Vanger wants to know who killed his grandniece, Harriet, when she disappeared in 1966. Lisbeth Salander, a punk rock hacker, comes to his aid at Vanger’s recommendation. They eventually discover a series of murders and realise that Martin Vanger was the culprit, The supposed victim, Harriet, is alive and has managed to escape to Australia. Vanger gives him useless evidence but Salander has the insight to hack Wennerstrom’s computer and manages to expose more serious crimes beyond Blomkvist’s research. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo offers more than just a good suspenseful read. It also gives you an insight to frameworks of Swedish society and how its institutions work. Salander is portrayed as a person who is discriminated against for her previous record and has undergone bitter skirmishes with the law. Larsson never got to see his work receive acclaim from critics and award winning bodies for literature because most this set of novels was published posthumously.