The Author: Stieg LarssonPublisher: 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
