The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by STIEG LARSON

In this intriguing story, the plot unfolds around not one but two protagonists, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. 

Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative reporter is humiliated by media and sentenced to three months in prison when he loses a libel against a corrupt business tycoon. He is also rendered bankrupt due to the hefty fines and costs in damages, he has been ordered to pay.

Soon afterwards, he meets Henrik Vanger, the retired CEO of the multibillion Vanger Corporation. He asks Mikael to look into the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet Vanger who has been presumed dead.

In return, Henrik promises Mikael considerable amount of money and solid evidence of corruption against that corrupt business tycoon. With nothing more to lose, Mikael accepts this proposal.

Henrik informs that Harriet disappeared without a trace during a family meet at the Vanger estate on Hedeby Island some thirty-six years ago while the island was temporarily cut off from the main land because of a traffic accident, since then he had been looking for her. He also tells that each year on his birthday he receives a dried white flower of the same species that Harriet used to give him on his birthday. 

Henrik believes that the killer, who he suspects is one of his family members, does this to mock his loss.

With this information and some old public records, Mikael begins his investigation to stir a hornet’s nest.

During his course of investigation, Mikael stumbles upon Lisbeth Salander, a twisted mistrustful antisocial twenty-five years old woman with a troubled past, who works as a surveillance agent in a large security company but actually is more of a hacker – she is the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Mikael and Lisbeth form an uneasy alliance to look into the mysterious disappearance of Harriet and while exploring the dark secrets of Vanger family, they pick up the trail of a serial killer who has been preying on women for decades.

Unfortunately, for them, the diabolical killer also picks up their trail and resolves to add their names to his victim list in order to cover his tracks completely.

In this crime-mystery-thriller novel, Mr. Larson has constructed a brutal darkly absorbing story around the disappearance of a girl, sex crimes, incompetence and cowardice of investigative journalists, moral bankruptcy of public agencies, Nazism, and the fury of a scorned woman – the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Mr. Larson has explicitly used heinous crimes such as rape, molestation and even child abuse, particularly toward the females to show blatantly the dark ugly side of the human nature that unfortunately does exist.

What I most like about the novel is that the author has gone to a great length to develop the plausible back-stories of his characters, which makes them credible, almost real. Moreover, the action and events in the novel has been depicted blandly without any glitter, which makes the plot credible.

This is something, which one does not find usually in most of the novels these days and for that, I am giving it five out of five stars.