The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

 

One of the things I enjoy reading the least is crime fiction. Of those criminal novels which I have read most I found boring and very much alike. However this one ceased my attention. If I have to be honest I decided to read it because of the title. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I like books which have captivating titles and I even think that choosing a good one is a very important part of writing a novel. So I bought it on an impulse and I did not regret it for a second.

The first thing I would like to say is that Swedish people are nuts. There, I said it. I mean, you cannot believe how sick this book was at some point. But this is what made it a very good thriller. The characters have very bizarre and unhealthy relationship between them. The main character, the girl with the dragon tattoo obviously, is a messed up girl with not a happy and bubbly past. It makes her a very fascinating character. Her partner is a journalist who digs up in corrupted businessmen and reveals their dirty games. They are both hired by a rich man, leading a big company, to reveal a mystery in his past. Yep, sounds cool and it is in fact really interesting. His granddaughter has vanished years ago and he has spent his lifetime trying to find out what happened to her. In the end all they find out is that this family has a lot of skeletons in its closet and someone is trying very hard to keep the partners away from the truth. Anyway, I won’t get very much into the plot because I am trying to make you read the book, not retell it. My point was that the novel has a very interesting story line which made me stumble over the words. It was very brutal indeed – a lot of killing and raping happened in this book but it is a thriller for a reason.

So if you are a fan of a little mystery this is the book for but I warn you – it is very sick. And by the way I promise that I will try to write about a little less brutal novel. :)