Product Description

A sensation across Europe—millions of copies sold

A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue.

It’s about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.

It’s about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance . . . and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age—and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it—who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism—and an unexpected connection between themselves.

It’s a contagiously exciting, stunningly intelligent novel about society at its most hidden, and about the intimate lives of a brilliantly realized cast of characters, all of them forced to face the darker aspects of their world and of their own lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-16
• Released on: 2008-09-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

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

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Larsson. At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden's dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title, Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption—at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman. Larsson died in 2004, shortly after handing in the manuscripts for what will be his legacy. 100,000 first printing. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Critics’ responses varied to the late Stieg Larsson’s debut novel. Although some considered it clever, suspenseful, and exhilarating, others found it confused and farfetched. Most fell somewhere in the middle, acknowledging its flaws (including a slow beginning, a glut of suspects, and an overabundance of hard-to-pronounce Swedish phrases and names) while praising its strong, memorable characters, dark humor, and inventive plot twists. Originally titled Men Who Hate Women, Girl is as much a cultural and social assessment of misogyny—a favorite topic of Larsson’s—as it is an intriguing take on the classic thriller. This is one for neo-noir fans—but it doesn’t seem destined to rule this side of the Atlantic.
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

Customer Reviews

I would give it six stars if it were allowed!
This is probably the best book I have read since The Devil in the White City. I couldn't put it down and it has all the elements I look for in a good book! Mikhael Bloomvist (excuse me if I misspell any names because they are all Swedish) is in a desperate spot and then asked by a wealthy elderly industrialist (Henrik Vanger) to solve a 40 year old mystery around the disappearance of his granddaughter (Harriet Vanger). Mikhael doesn't realize what he bargained for when he agrees. As the story unfolds we start to learn little tidbits of the Vanger family involving secrets, jealousy, hate etc. that is was more intriguing than the Collins family was in the old Dark Shadows tv show.

Eventually, Mikhael needs to call on the services of Salander a punk rockish type of computer hacker who is an entire story all by herself. As Mikhael and Salander start coming up with new clues, bad things happen. Along with the danger of unraveling the mystery, Mikhael faces jail time for a problem that occurred with an enemy of the Vangers and the possible collapse of his publishing company (Millenium).

This was a book that I did not want to end but I noted on the jacket that the author wrote two more forthcoming books just before his unfortunate death and they will be coming out this year so I will eagerly look for them.

The middle was middlingly exciting
The middle chunk of this book is a moderately interesting murder mystery thriller. I feel like I've read better mysterys, however. The motivations here are totally concealed and then completely explode to resolution in the space of 100 pages. The interesting part, alas, wraps up 100 pages before the end of the book. The rest is the 'corporate thriller' and is not thrilling. The 100+ pages of dull setup to start this book is not thrilling either. I love the tease on the back, something like, if you get to chapter two you're HOOKED!. Huh? Maybe if you get to chapter 14 you might get engaged.

OK, SPOILER ALERT. Again, why are are thriller masterminds so stupid? This mastermind has a worldwide criminal empire spanning drugs and WEAPONS dealing. He's ostensibly run afoul of international law in coopting aid money to arm hosile commandos or whatever. So his arch-nemesis (worth installing a mole in the organization) is a SWEDISH FINANCIAL JOURNALIST WITH A STAFF OF SIX PEOPLE? WHAT? He's not concerned about Interpol, NATO, the Columbians, NSA, CIA, MI-6, no, no, no. He's busy trying to ruin a small magazine BY CONSPIRING TO WITHHOLD ADVERTISING. REALLY?

Also, the mastermind keeps 100% of all of his files on one laptop, had kept the SAME HARD DRIVE OVER NUMEROUS LAPTOPS FOR 15 YEARS AND STILL USED IT RELIGIOUSLY EVEN AFTER FLEEING? This plot device is so stupid the book even acknowledges it in two places and continues to use it. Also, he apparently has a million bank accounts but manages to lodge every critical krona in ONE BANK ACCOUNT that apparently doesn't require him to be even aware of what's going on to withdraw some super-bonds which are so liquid and transferrable they violate every possible money laundering statute even in Switzerland.

Oh, in further SPOILERS: the second generation killer has been able to kill apparently hundreds of women in his secret underground dungeon over the course of forty years, fine. Though the town is notably small and every coming and going of our hero is observed by EVERYONE, the killer can transport foreign women in and their remains out over decades without the slightest detection. Yet, within two hours of being detected manages to not kill a journalist and crash his car into a truck. Dumb.

Further, I think the utter goofiness of the plot makes the startling violence and misogny in the book shocking and misplaced. Frankly I'm sad to see the plug from John Burdett on the back because Burdett's books are awesome.

Great thriller and much more... in a time of financial crooks
As other reviews mentioned, this book catchs you and it does not let you breath until you reach the end. Fortunately, the sequel is already in our bookshops here in Spain and I am looking forward to my girlfriend finishing `the girl who played with fire` to go on reading (it's tempting to steal her the book!). Unfortunately, the author died, and we will just have a trilogy. (Maybe fate wished that: too many sequels could be self-defeating).

The plot is greatly constructed in two parallel thriller stories plus a number of personal stories which are also very interesting to read. I would like to underline two things:

First, the great construction of characters.I am thrilled by Lisbeth Salander, hacker-hero, freak and completely un-adorable. It is a great character. But also Mickael or Henrik Vanger. All have their own contradictions and that makes them very deep and close.

Second the premonitory (?) depiction of the corporate-financial world (and the role of journalists therein). When Mickael (Larsson) criticizes the idolatry of journalist to corporate tycoons, one cannot help recalling the recent times when the villains of today -some come to my mind-, were the heroes of the financial world and the financial journalism.

A great book!

Just one minus, not to Larsson, but to the English version. The traslation of the title is unfortunate. It is much more appropiate the original traslation (Men who do not love women). Those who have read the book will understand why.