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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | 
 enlarge | Author: Stieg Larsson
Creator: Reg Keeland
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $14.39
You Save: $10.56 (42%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  112 reviews
Sales Rank: 58
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.6
ISBN: 0307269752
Dewey Decimal Number: 839.738
EAN: 9780307269751
Publication Date: September 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. --Dave Callanan
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| Customer Reviews: Read 107 more reviews...
 This Swedish bestseller deserves to be a blockbuster here too. August 25, 2008
131 out of 139 found this review helpful
A 24-year-old computer hacker sporting an assortment of tattoos and body piercings and afflicted with Asperger Syndrome or something of the like has been under state guardianship in her native Sweden since she was thirteen. She supports herself by doing deep background investigations for Dragan Armansky, who, in turn, worries the anorexic-looking Lisbeth Salander is "the perfect victim for anyone who wished her ill." Salander may look fourteen and stubbornly shun social norms, but she possesses the inner strength of a determined survivor. She sees more than her word processor page in black and white and despises the users and abusers of this world. She won't hesitate to exact her own unique brand of retribution against small-potatoes bullies, sick predators, and corrupt magnates alike.
Financial journalist Carl Mikael Blomkvist has just been convicted of libeling a financier and is facing a fine and three months in jail. Blomkvist, after a Salander-completed background check, is summoned to a meeting with semi-retired industrialist Henrik Vanger whose far-flung but shrinking corporate empire is wholly family owned. Vanger has brooded for 36 years about the fate of his great niece, Harriet. Blomkvist is expected to live for a year on the island where many Vanger family members still reside and where Harriet was last seen. Under the cover story that he is writing a family history, Blomkvist is to investigate which family member might have done away with the teenager.
So, the stage is set. The reader easily guesses early that somehow Blomkvist and Salander will pool their talents to probe the Vanger mystery. However,Swede Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is no humdrum, formulaic whodunit. It is fascinating and very difficult to put down. Nor is it without some really suspenseful and chillingly ugly scenes....
The issue most saturating The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that of shocking sexual violence primarily against women but not excluding men. Salander and Blomkvist both confront prima facie evidence of such crimes. Larsson's other major constituent elements are corporate malfeasance that threatens complete collapse of stock markets and anarchistic distrust of officialdom to the point of endorsing (at least, almost) vigilantism. He also deals with racism as he spins a complex web from strands of real and imagined history concerning mid-twentieth century Vanger affiliations with Sweden's fascist groups.
But Larsson's carefully calibrated tale is more than a grisly, cynical world view of his country and the modern world at large. At its core, it is an fascinating character study of a young woman who easily masters computer code but for whom human interaction is almost always more trouble than it is worth, of an investigative reporter who chooses a path of less resistance than Salander but whose humanity reaches out to many including her, and of peripheral characters -- such as Armansky -- who need more of their story told.
Fortunately, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in English translation will be followed by two more in the Millennium series: The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Air Castle that Blew Up. I can't wait. Larsson also made a 200-page start on a fourth book, but sadly he succumbed to a heart attack in 2004 and his father decided the unfinished work will remain unpublished.
I recommend this international bestseller to all who eagerly sift new books for challenging intellectual crime thrillers, who luxuriate in immersing themselves in the ambience of a compellingly created world and memorable characters, who soak up financial and investigative minutiae as well as computer hacking tidbits, and who want to share Larsson's crusade against violence and racism.
Best Book of the Year September 13, 2008
41 out of 42 found this review helpful
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a masterwork of fine craftsmanhip. When I reached the final page I was disappointed that there was no more to read. I did not want the story to end. The characters are too intriguing for this to be the end. Apparently this was the first novel in a trilogy by the brillant writer, Stieg Larsson, who unfortunately died in 2004: the book contains a tribute to him and his career. I cannot wait to read the sequels scheduled for release in the USA in 2009.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an international best seller and is set in Sweden. It takes a little effort to get accustomed to all the Swedish names and places but then the story moves with lightening speed. There are two key plots happening simultaneously. In one, a Swedish financial investigative journalist publishes a libelous attack about a powerful industrialist and is sentenced to jail, fined a ruinous sum, and has his career torn to shreds. Another industrialist, Vanger, hires the journalist to investigate the 36 year old disappearnace of his then 14 year old grand niece. There has been no trace of her in all these years and she is assumed dead. Yet, every year on his birthday, he receives a mysterious gift of a pressed flower, mimicking a gift his missing grandniece used to give him when she lived there. Vanger, an old man, is tormented by the flower gifts, and wants one more chance to find out what happened to her and who killed her. What the journalist uncovers about the Vanger family's hitherto unknown secrets and connections to the Nazis, will have you hanging on the edge of your seat.
The book is titled after yet another character, Lisabeth Salander, a societal outcast and social ward of the State, uncivilized without any desire to obey societal norms, and replete with piercings, tattoos, and a goth/biker appearance. In short, at first glance a totally undesirable and unsympathetic person. She is a researcher with a corporate security firm and ends up working with the journalist. In truth, she is a survivor of abuse in all forms with low self esteem, and an inablity to trust. She is a genius with Asberger's Syndrome, a form of autism, who sees patterns in things ordinary mortals miss and uses incredible computer hacking skills to accomplish her goals. She is fascinating: ruthless and tough to a fault, yet internally vulnerable, struggling to comprehend her own feelings. She has an appeal that draws you to her, rooting for her, and wanting to understand her. Lisabeth is unforgettable, unlike most characters that populate mystery thrillers. There is such depth here.
The book is a thriller on many levels: The story about the Vanger family itself, the journalist's crusade to redeem his reputation, Lisabeth's vendettas and development, and of course, the truth about what actually happened to the missing Vanger heiresss. This is a superb novel and impossible to put down. Utterly stunning. Probably the year's best book.
Couldn't put it down to the last page... August 28, 2008
29 out of 31 found this review helpful
The novel is really rich in detail and quick paced -- And incredibly moving in depicting the struggles faced by its female protagonist. This novel somehow brings off having two really well drawn protagonists, one male, one female that one can empathize with. A middle aged journalist, and a troubled but incredibly talented young woman who works as a PI intersect to solve a labyrinthine plot. Lisbet's story would have made an incredible novel on its own. She has Aspergers and is trapped in an awful school /social system with no advocates and non-existent mental health services. It is really dark in its themes somewhat like the Kite Runner. The complex mystery, thriller aspects are really good, and then the whole other aspects of the novel which is also a social comment on society in Sweden, journalistic ethics, misogyny, and gut-wrenching sexual violence. So prepare to be disturbed by the darkness it depicts.
The only thing that bothered me a little, though the incredible characterizations and plotting made up for it totally was the out of time technology -- It seemed like the novel was set in the 90s, but all of the technology action seemed to be happening in the late 2000s. So the technology used in the plot time lines seemed a decade out of whack sometimes. I will go back and read it and see if its something I misunderstood.
All in all, its one of the best mystery /thrillers I've read from the last decade. In fact comparing it to the Da Vinci Code, the characters are not simplistic one dimensional cut outs at all. The rich characterizations and explorations of dark behaviour remind me of Elizabeth George. I'm waiting for the two final books of this trilogy. It is so sad that the author has passed away and we won't be meeting the characters for more than just 3 books.
A Swedish whodunnit that will make you miss appointments January 29, 2008
16 out of 19 found this review helpful
I bought this book because of its good reviews, because I love Sweden, and because I'd read about the sad and premature death of its author.
I don't often read mysteries, but this one had me hooked pretty quickly. You can't help being sorry that there will be no more new books from Larsson, but it's a relief to know there are two more books to come in this trilogy, because the characters he created are strong enough to carry that many and more. It's like having a wonderful first course and knowing there are still two to go.
Mikael Blomqvist is a complex protagonist, dogged, humane, flawed and sometimes insecure. His sidekick, the resourceful Lisbeth Salander, who hates to be compared to Pippi Longstocking (thereby making the comparison for us), is even more complicated. Personally, I liked her, and I'm intrigued to know more about her, which will hopefully happen in the next two books.
Plot-wise, this kept me guessing right to the end, with many satisfying twists and surprises. The writing is plain and unadorned, but with a story like this you really don't need lyricism.
All I can say is, I hope the translator is working fast on the sequels!
A tale that hits close to home.... January 30, 2008
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
I got all three books in the trilogy as a present,
and read them all in less than a week (in Swedish), a personal
record.
The first book is now available in English.
(The literal tranlation would have been "Men who Hate Women".)
The books are complete page-turners, the suspense
keeps building. The author's death prior to publication
may have contributed to some minor errors of fact and
of internal consistency, but this does not detract from
the readability.
The background portrayal of a school system
gone haywire and of a mental health system out of control,
both violationg people that don't quite fit in with the
Swedish way resounds with its plausibilty. I am left with
the impression that the author has first-hand experience
with the horrors of the former, if not necessarily the
latter.
Curiously, the author fails to draw the conclusion that
it is the welfare state itself that is the cause, he clearly
embraces it - but then, he is a dyed-in-the-wool Swede.
A piece of advice to the reader: It is helpful to have a
physical map of Sweden handy; with the exception of one
of the main locations (Hedeby, which exists only unrelatedly
in Denmark) all the towns are real.
The "Millenium" magazine featured in the books exists
in the real world as "EXPO", and Mikael Blomkvist is
clearly the author's alter ego. I believe that somebody
familiar with the "in crowd" in Stockholm will find several
matches between the fictitious characters in the trilogy
and real people.
Nils Andersson
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