The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which has sold millions of copies and occupied bestseller lists across Europe, is the surprising debut novel by Stockholm magazine editor Stieg Larsson. He delivered it, along with the rest of the trilogy, to his publisher just before he died of a heart attack in 2004, at age 50.
The Story: On his 82nd birthday, wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger receives a pressed flower in a picture frame without a note or any other identification—the same gift his beloved niece Harriet once gave to him as a child. He has received the same mysterious birthday gift every year since Harriet vanished from the family island in 1966. Convinced that he has little time left, Vanger resolves to know her fate and persuades down-and-out investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist to uncover it. Blomkvist hires anti-social hacker Lisbeth Salander—the girl with the dragon tattoo, among others—to assist him. When their combined efforts unearth long-hidden secrets, the unlikely pair find themselves in grave danger.
Knopf. 480 pages. $24.95. ISBN: 0307269752
Washington Post
"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has been a huge bestseller in Europe and will be one here if readers are looking for an intelligent, ingeniously plotted, utterly engrossing thriller that is variously a serial-killer saga, a search for a missing person and an informed glimpse into the worlds of journalism and business. … The story starts off at a leisurely pace, but the reader soon surrenders to Larsson’s skillful narrative." Patrick Anderson
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"It’s a big, intricately plotted, darkly humorous work, rich with ironies, quirky but believable characters and a literary playfulness that only a master of the genre and its history could bring off. … Because there are many characters and the situation is complex, the narrative begins slowly, but Larsson keeps it interesting as the action accelerates to its strange and disturbing conclusion." Michael Helfand
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Larsson leans heavily on exposition and that old standby: back-filling conversation. Still, he elicits a nice arc in us of growing dread, out-and-out worry, then exhilaration." Karen Long
Dallas Morning News
"Following the myriad foreign words, names and places (‘She took the tunnelbana from Zinkensdamm to Ostermalmstorg and walked down towards Strandvagen,’ reads one typical passage) is challenging. … As fine, complex and rewarding a novel as this may be, my main quibble is that Salander, who is secondary to Blomkvist, really should be the focus, since she is by far the most interesting and distinct of the characters." Edward Nawotka
Los Angeles Times
"I was excited to tuck into [this] Nordic novel and was surprisingly disappointed by the first few chapters: They are dense with character and plot development, financial reporting mixed with umlaut-heavy names of people and places I didn’t know. … The mystery unfolds, and the book takes off, in the fourth chapter: From there, it becomes classic parlor crime fiction with many modern twists." Marjorie Miller
NY Times Book Review
"The novel perks up as their investigation gains speed, though readers will need some time to sort through the various cousins and nephews and half-brothers and -sisters who populate the Vanger family. … But if the middle section of Girl is a treat, the rest of the novel doesn’t quite measure up." Alex Berenson
New York Times
"It’s Mr. Larsson’s two protagonists—Carl Mikael Blomkvist, a reporter filling the role of detective, and his sidekick, Lisbeth Salander, a k a the girl with the dragon tattoo—who make this novel more than your run-of-the-mill mystery: they’re both compelling, conflicted, complicated people, idiosyncratic in the extreme, and interesting enough to compensate for the plot mechanics, which seize up as the book nears its unsatisfying conclusion. … She and Blomkvist make a very odd pair indeed—picture Angelina Jolie teamed up with a young Robert Redford—but their peculiar chemistry is what fuels this novel, particularly as Mr. Larsson loses control of his messy, increasingly implausible plot." Michiko Kakutani
Critical Summary
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.