The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Author: Stieg Larsson

Publisher: Vintage Books/Random House, 2008

Length: 644 pages

My Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

The Preface: I was on vacation in Yachats, Oregon during the summer and found myself at the home of a distant relative or acquaintance of my wife's family. In the midst of all the kids, chaos, and canines I found a copy of this book sitting on a nearby coffee table. Knowing full well that I hadn't the time to read while we were there - I still wanted to see what all the fuss was about, as the book was quite ubiquitous at bookstores, grocery checkstands, and pretty much everywhere. While I read only the first few pages that day in Yachats - I was sufficiently intrigued as to pick it up again a few weeks ago when I found that my wife had a copy at home.

My Review: As many other people who've read the book have stated (and as I will repeat here): the book starts slow. It is fair to say that it is, at times, near tedium to continue to push through the first 50 pages of the book. Nevertheless - it is well worth it. Once the foundation has been laid (and necessarily so), the book moves at a skillful and pleasant pace, often on the brink of being "spellbinding" - but never so over-the-top as to induce eye-rolling guffaws.

The premise of the book is this: Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist from Stockholm, is asked by an aging former CEO, Henrik Vanger, to take a fresh look at a cold case - the disappearance and presumptive murder of his beloved great-niece, Harriet, nearly 50 years prior. Vanger is convinced that someone in his family is responsible for her murder and he has been tortured by this thought all of his life. Blomkvist agrees and eventually partners with Lisbeth Salander, a part-time private investigator and full-time social outcast. As they work to determine who was involved with Harriet's demise, they discover far more than they were asked to find out.

The author, Stieg Larsson, weaves numerous storylines throughout this main plot, and adroitly manages to keep them all intact and fluid throughout the book. Insodoing, he also manages to present a critique of journalism and the media that should resonant with anyone who has followed the culture wars of the past 20 years.

The main, and perhaps only, frustration I had with the book is that I often became confused as to whom certain characters are and to what relationship they had with each other. However, the author provides a nice family tree diagram of the Vanger clan in the front of the book and I often found myself flipping back to it to see how Martin was related to Issabella, Erica to Cecelia, or Harald to Henrik. Frustrating as this was, I soon realized that the large stable of characters made the story more rich and deeply complex, and made for a far-more intriguing "whodunit" than if there were but a mere handful of suspects. Some characters were more developed and fleshed-out than others. Yet, the story and the treatment of each person felt organic enough not to distract from the overall tenor of the book.

Additionally, I often had very little idea where in the world they were from one moment to the next. The locales are such places as the islands of Hedeby and Sodermalm, the city of Sandhamn, and all places in between, which in all honesty, I have no connection or reference to. I wished that Larsson could have also included a map of the difference places involved - especially one of Hedeby island, where most of the storyline unfolds. More than once, I reminisced of the map of Middle Earth and The Shire that J.R.R. Tolkien included in each of the Lord of the Rings books. But, I digress...

With relief, I came to discover that my geographical handicap was not critical to my enjoyment of the novel and I was able to simply let go of the fact that I was often unsure of where Blomkvist or Salander were at some particular point.

While the conclusion of the book was not the jaw-dropping, out of left field, shocker that one might expect - Larson deftly wraps up all the storylines nicely and more-or-less convincingly. I did take small issue with one minor part of the book and reacted with furrowed-brow confusion - but I cannot discuss it here without spoiling the novel for anyone who has not read it.

Larsson wrote this book and two others to follow it (The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) and presented them to his publisher shortly before he unexpectedly died. I look forward to reading them soon. However, I hope that Larsson did not succumb to Dan Brown syndrome and simply rehash the same plot in each successive book. Nevertheless, on my next vacation to Yachats, if I find a copy of either of them lying around handy anywhere, I'll know it to be fate and begin reading them at once.

Amazon page: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

At Home

The Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: Doubleday Random House, 2010

Length: 497 pages

My Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

The Preface: Okay, first — my confession: I am a Bill Bryson junkie. If he wrote "The Complete and Authoritative History of 17th Century Buggywhips — Volume I," I would buy it remorselessly and consume it instantly.

That said, I spent quite a bit of time traveling for Fred Meyer throughout the month of October and, as is the custom, I spent my fair share of time in airport shops looking for magazines, newspapers, and other forms of distractions from the impending white-knuckle terror of flight. In one shop (I forget where I was) I saw this book stacked-out prominently and it accompanied me on that flight and every other until I was done with my travels. It was, in short, my woobie.

My Review: As Bryson explains at the outset of his book, he lives in an old Victorian parsonage in eastern England that was constructed in 1851. He was inspired to walk through each room in his house andvicariously tell the history of the world through many of the items found in each room (or perhaps, more generally, through many of the concepts associated with each room). In so doing, he is thus able to tell tales about the origins of certain words (curfew, limey, and comfortable to name just a few); examine the history of the modern city; explain the origins of some of the trivial, yet vexing idiosyncrasies of life (why do men's sports jackets have three useless buttons on the cuff?); and introduce some of the more interesting saints and scoundrels throughout the past.

As is his style, Bryson writes with self-effacing humor, wit, and a evocative prose that keeps the book moving and enjoyable. However, most books are not without their shortcomings, and "At Home" contains its fair share. Perhaps my greatest frustration with the book is that it never seemed to be completely faithful to its premise of "journeying about the house from room to room to 'write a history of the world without leaving home.'" Infrequently enough, the book felt like a stream-of-conscientiousness effort wherein Bryson was bound and determined to shoehorn in some particular narrative he found interesting or droll - but secretly would admit that it doesn't fit organically into the rest of the narrative. The result of this is that I found myself starting to skim from time to time and flipping ahead to see how many pages were left in the chapter and until we could hit the "reset" button and start over with a new room.

Nevertheless - the book is enticing, interesting, and rewarding. If I were to be asked what author would do the best job at tackling a project like this - I would have to say (quite quickly) that Bill Bryson would be my top choice, if not my only choice. Hopefully, I won't have to be forced to climb aboard a highly-pressured metal tube and flung through the air at 35,000 feet in order to enjoy his next book.

Amazon page: At Home

Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation

The Author: Joseph Hallinan

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003

Length: 288 pages

My Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

The Preface: Last spring term, I took a class at Portland State University titled "Psychology & The Law." One of the guest lecturers (a criminal defense attorney, I believe) suggested this book during her time with us and, for no particular reason other than the desire to read something other than the textbook, I ordered it off of Amazon and actually found the time to read it. The class itself left a bit to be desired (as did my grade; B+....alas) but was still pretty enjoyable - if forgettable. The book, on the other hand was far, far better.

My Review: On January 17th, 1961, President Dwight David Eisenhower delivered his farewell address to the nation as his second term of office came to a close. Although he spoke of much throughout this address, it is perhaps best remembered for his warning to Americans against the influence of the "military-industrial complex." This phrase is commonly used to describe the often unseemly and relationships between the government and the private companies who stand to make money from warfare. This relationship is often blamed for the nation's mounting debt and wasteful spending (whether real or imagined).

Joseph Hallinan takes this basic premise about the relationship between the government and the private sector and uses it as a model to explain the current state of the criminal justice system - particularly when it comes to the nation's prison system. The argument is simple: the reason there are so many prisoners in America is because there are substantial numbers of people and companies who stand to make money because of it. This is the basis of the "prison-industrial complex" argument and is the premise of Hallinan's book. Prisoners need to be fed, transported, clothed, housed, and even entertained. And where there is a need - there will always be those who look to capitalize on that need for profit. After a thorough read of his work - one is hard-pressed to disagree with the author.

"Going Up The River" is a product of many years of painstaking research by Hallinan - currently a writer for The Wall Street Journal. He details his narratives with dozens of people who are residents in various prisons and, perhaps with more keen insight, those who work in the prison system as guards, wardens, and whatnot. He also talks with the residents of the town where the prisons are situated. The results and reactions are not what I would label "intuitive."

Hallinan lays out many reasons why many towns opted for - even begged for - prisons to be built in their area. Some even still brag about them for commerce and tourism reasons. For many small and dying communities, prisons are a way to keep the economy alive, ensure jobs for the locals, and keep a pulse in the lifeblood of the town. And in years past - this worked well for most everyone. However, with the advent of privatization of the prison industry, things soon began to be done on the cheap - which of course led to corners being cut - which then led to improper and inadequate training for the prison staff and overcrowding for the inmates - which is, obviously, the perfect storm for violence, corruption, scandal, death, and heartache.

An underlying theme in the book is the painfully palpable failure and futility of America's "war on drugs." In one poignant example - Hallian compares the sentences of a convicted drug dealer with that of a CIA agent convicted of passing classified information to the Russians. One was "a dope dealer who sold a few ounces of crack" and the other was "a spy who sold out his country." Yet both received 24 years in prison. Yet despite the transparent failure of mandatory sentencing laws - politicians only want to spend money on more cells, more bars, and more walls. And the citizenry merely seem to acquiesce.

To that end, Hallinan takes us through a brief but perceptive history of criminal justice in America - beginning with our Puritan foundations and up to modern times. We've tried nearly every model of criminal justice ever dreamed up - from the insanely lackadaisical to the tortuously cruel. The lesson learned? Nothing seems to work. Nothing. No matter whether we imprison people in order to "cure" them, to scare them, to punish them, or to protect them - we never stop having criminals and, ergo, we still have prisoners. Few seem to be reformed in the "reformatories." Fewer yet are corrected in a "correctional institute." No one is penitent in a penitentiary. And I suppose that until the cycle of the prison-industrial complex is broken, I suspect that Hallinan would argue that it never will be.

Hallinan doers offer a glimmer of hope at some methods that do seem to work on occasions - but that seem to be more about the prisoner himself - and less about the system that placed them in prison. To Hallinan - the only way to get through prison is to have three things with while you serve you sentence: a family on the outside; a job on the inside; and a strong faith throughout.

Amazon page: Going Up the River