Adult Book of the Month
The
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Translated from the Swedish by Reg Keeland.
Published by MacLehose in 2008
Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder – and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who has just lost a libel case under murky circumstances, to investigate under the pretence of writing a family history.
Blomkvist is joined on the investigation by Lisbeth Salander - a 24 year old computer hacker with a photographic memory, a deep distrust of all in authority, a violent temper and some serious intimacy issues.
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 that continues to the present day.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a violent thriller containing a murder mystery, family saga, love story, sexual violence and corporate corruption. But above all, it, and the further two books of the trilogy, are riveting reads.
‘Combine the chilly Swedish backdrop and moody psychodrama of a Bergman movie with the grisly pyrotechnics of a serial-killer thriller, then add an angry punk heroine and a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist, and you have the ingredients of Stieg Larsson’s first novel.’ Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
‘The biggest Swedish phenomenon since ABBA.’ People
‘Is the hype justified? Yes . . . This complex, multilayered tale grabs the reader from the first page.’ Library Journal
Stieg Larsson was born in Sweden. He was the editor in
chief of the magazine Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic
right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. He died in 2004, shortly
after delivering the manuscript for the three books in the Millennium
series to his publisher.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was called Men Who
Hate Women when originally published, won the prestigious Glass Key
award for the best Nordic crime novel of 2005.
By the same author:
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
