Thrillers & Suspense
![Stieg Larsson - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001J95ACO.jpg)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Series)
Murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue combine into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel, the first in Stieg Larsson's thrilling Millenium series featuring Lisbeth Salander.
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
Editorial Reviews
"Wildly suspenseful...an intelligent, ingeniously plotted, utterly engrossing thriller." -The Washington Post
"Combine the chilly Swedish backdrop and moody psychodrama of a Bergman movie with the grisly pyrotechnics of a serial-killer thriller, then add an angry punk heroine and a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist, and you have the ingredients of Stieg Larsson's first novel." -The New York Times
"Unique and fascinating.... It's like a blast of cold, fresh air to read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." -Chicago Tribune
"A whip-smart heroine and a hunky guy who needs her help? This sexy, addictive thriller is everything you never knew you could get from a crime novel." -Glamour
"Combine the chilly Swedish backdrop and moody psychodrama of a Bergman movie with the grisly pyrotechnics of a serial-killer thriller, then add an angry punk heroine and a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist, and you have the ingredients of Stieg Larsson's first novel." -The New York Times
"Unique and fascinating.... It's like a blast of cold, fresh air to read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." -Chicago Tribune
"A whip-smart heroine and a hunky guy who needs her help? This sexy, addictive thriller is everything you never knew you could get from a crime novel." -Glamour
Readers Top Reviews
Liam J MaddenReviewe
This is with little doubt a brilliant exploration of 'Nordic Noir'. As a book that manages to convey both brilliance and extremely a well thought out story, there's very few books that live up to the hype and 'The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo' is definitely one of them. It's brilliant on many levels. Although there is sadness in the passing of Stieg Larsson, the three books that he wrote in the 'Millenium Series' manage to 'break the mould' when it comes to massively improving the thriller genre. Just about every word in this first novel is masterful and even the dialogue has to be admired. Lisbeth Salander and Mikale Blomkvist are the two strongest characters that manage to take the novel up to dizzying heights. Apart from them, the various characters throughout the book are expertly thought out and it is little wonder why this genus piece of writing managed to become such a success. Although concentration is required for the first chapter, the rest of the story is beautifully written and although shocking in parts, it's a book that makes it's points very well and extremely carefully. Salander stops the book becoming trash as her strength holds the believability of the work together. Highly recommended.
Bookman Pete
Re-reading the trilogy and the secret with this book is that its a prologue to the real story, with its own plot and conclusion, to introduce the characters with a few slight hints to what follows, but you really need to read The Girl That Played With Fire and a the Hornets Nest to discover the real story. The 2 subsequent books, by a different author are just bandwagon books. If you want to watch the films, the original Swedish films are the best, a film of each of the three books. The Hollywood travesty with Daniel Craig isn't worth the effort.
Jonathan FryerSUN FR
I watched the film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the original Swedish version, directed by Niels Arden Oplev) late at night, sitting on the top deck of a cruise ship that was traveling from Accra to Cape Town. The film was projected onto a screen under a star-spangled sky and there was only one other person present, a lady of a certain age, who got up and left hurriedly when the Lisbeth Salander (the girl of the title) launched a particularly calculated and sadistic attack on her sexually exploitative guardian. The film was so brilliant that I was nervous of reading the book, but now I have I acknowledge that it is even richer, more complex, more troubling. It would be the first of what author Stieg Larsson intended to be a whole series of novels, though he died prematurely after completing only three, published posthumously. So he never knew what critical acclaim he would receive -- deservedly so, on the basis of this gripping page-turner, where shocks and surprises abound. So of course now I can't wait to read the other two.
Kiley Bill DolworthA
Im an american girl, and I could not get past the swedish names in the book. Every freaking page has so many swedish names, names of people, places etc. Its so annoying to try to read a book and every time you get to a word you dont know how to pronounce you sit there and try to say it in your head. I had to stop and get frustrated on every page and the names werent memorable because I didnt know what the heck they were. sooo i didnt know who was who as was so frustrated i just stopped reading it altogether. This is the first time in my life that I stopped reading a book for that reason. I know i probably sound crazy but I really just couldnt get past it.
Short Excerpt Teaser
A Friday in November
It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on the same day–which was something of an irony under the circumstances. The old policeman was sitting with his coffee, waiting, expecting the call.
"It arrived."
"What is it this year?"
"I don't know what kind it is. I'll have to get someone to tell me what it is. It's white."
"No letter, I suppose."
"Just the flower. The frame is the same kind as last year. One of those do-it-yourself ones."
"Postmark?"
"Stockholm."
"Handwriting?"
"Same as always, all in capitals. Upright, neat lettering."
With that, the subject was exhausted, and not another word was exchanged for almost a minute. The retired policeman leaned back in his kitchen chair and drew on his pipe. He knew he was no longer expected to come up with a pithy comment or any sharp question which would shed a new light on the case. Those days had long since passed, and the exchange between the two men seemed like a ritual attaching to a mystery which no-one else in the whole world had the least interest in unravelling.
The Latin name was Leptospermum (Myrtaceae) rubinette. It was a plant about ten centimetres high with small, heather-like foliage and a white flower with five petals about two centimetres across.
The plant was native to the Australian bush and uplands, where it was to be found among tussocks of grass. There it was called Desert Snow. Someone at the botanical gardens in Uppsala would later confirm that it was a plant seldom cultivated in Sweden. The botanist wrote in her report that it was related to the tea tree and that it was sometimes confused with its more common cousin Leptospermum scoparium, which grew in abundance in New Zealand. What distinguished them, she pointed out, was that rubinette had a small number of microscopic pink dots at the tips of the petals, giving the flower a faint pinkish tinge.
Rubinette was altogether an unpretentious flower. It had no known medicinal properties, and it could not induce hallucinatory experiences. It was neither edible, nor had a use in the manufacture of plant dyes. On the other hand, the aboriginal people of Australia regarded as sacred the region and the flora around Ayers Rock.
The botanist said that she herself had never seen one before, but after consulting her colleagues she was to report that attempts had been made to introduce the plant at a nursery in Göteborg, and that it might, of course, be cultivated by amateur botanists. It was difficult to grow in Sweden because it thrived in a dry climate and had to remain indoors half of the year. It would not thrive in calcareous soil and it had to be watered from below. It needed pampering.
The fact of its being so rare a flower ought to have made it easier to trace the source of this particular specimen, but in practice it was an impossible task. There was no registry to look it up in, no licences to explore. Anywhere from a handful to a few hundred enthusiasts could have had access to seeds or plants. And those could have changed hands between friends or been bought by mail order from anywhere in Europe, anywhere in the Antipodes.
But it was only one in the series of mystifying flowers that each year arrived by post on the first day of November. They were always beautiful and for the most part rare flowers, always pressed, mounted on watercolour paper in a simple frame measuring six inches by eleven inches.
The strange story of the flowers had never been reported in the press; only a very few people knew of it. Thirty years ago the regular arrival of the flower was the object of much scrutiny–at the National Forensic Laboratory, among fingerprint experts, graphologists, criminal investigators, and one or two relatives and friends of the recipient. Now the actors in the drama were but three: the elderly birthday boy, the retired police detective, and the person who had posted the flower. The first two at least had reached such an age that the group of interested parties would soon be further diminished.
The policeman was a hardened veteran. He would never forget his first case, in which he had had to take into custody a violent and appallingly drunk worker at an electrical substation before he caused others harm. During his career he had brought in poachers, wife beaters, con men, car thieves, and drunk drivers. He had dealt with burglars, drug dealers, r...
It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on the same day–which was something of an irony under the circumstances. The old policeman was sitting with his coffee, waiting, expecting the call.
"It arrived."
"What is it this year?"
"I don't know what kind it is. I'll have to get someone to tell me what it is. It's white."
"No letter, I suppose."
"Just the flower. The frame is the same kind as last year. One of those do-it-yourself ones."
"Postmark?"
"Stockholm."
"Handwriting?"
"Same as always, all in capitals. Upright, neat lettering."
With that, the subject was exhausted, and not another word was exchanged for almost a minute. The retired policeman leaned back in his kitchen chair and drew on his pipe. He knew he was no longer expected to come up with a pithy comment or any sharp question which would shed a new light on the case. Those days had long since passed, and the exchange between the two men seemed like a ritual attaching to a mystery which no-one else in the whole world had the least interest in unravelling.
The Latin name was Leptospermum (Myrtaceae) rubinette. It was a plant about ten centimetres high with small, heather-like foliage and a white flower with five petals about two centimetres across.
The plant was native to the Australian bush and uplands, where it was to be found among tussocks of grass. There it was called Desert Snow. Someone at the botanical gardens in Uppsala would later confirm that it was a plant seldom cultivated in Sweden. The botanist wrote in her report that it was related to the tea tree and that it was sometimes confused with its more common cousin Leptospermum scoparium, which grew in abundance in New Zealand. What distinguished them, she pointed out, was that rubinette had a small number of microscopic pink dots at the tips of the petals, giving the flower a faint pinkish tinge.
Rubinette was altogether an unpretentious flower. It had no known medicinal properties, and it could not induce hallucinatory experiences. It was neither edible, nor had a use in the manufacture of plant dyes. On the other hand, the aboriginal people of Australia regarded as sacred the region and the flora around Ayers Rock.
The botanist said that she herself had never seen one before, but after consulting her colleagues she was to report that attempts had been made to introduce the plant at a nursery in Göteborg, and that it might, of course, be cultivated by amateur botanists. It was difficult to grow in Sweden because it thrived in a dry climate and had to remain indoors half of the year. It would not thrive in calcareous soil and it had to be watered from below. It needed pampering.
The fact of its being so rare a flower ought to have made it easier to trace the source of this particular specimen, but in practice it was an impossible task. There was no registry to look it up in, no licences to explore. Anywhere from a handful to a few hundred enthusiasts could have had access to seeds or plants. And those could have changed hands between friends or been bought by mail order from anywhere in Europe, anywhere in the Antipodes.
But it was only one in the series of mystifying flowers that each year arrived by post on the first day of November. They were always beautiful and for the most part rare flowers, always pressed, mounted on watercolour paper in a simple frame measuring six inches by eleven inches.
The strange story of the flowers had never been reported in the press; only a very few people knew of it. Thirty years ago the regular arrival of the flower was the object of much scrutiny–at the National Forensic Laboratory, among fingerprint experts, graphologists, criminal investigators, and one or two relatives and friends of the recipient. Now the actors in the drama were but three: the elderly birthday boy, the retired police detective, and the person who had posted the flower. The first two at least had reached such an age that the group of interested parties would soon be further diminished.
The policeman was a hardened veteran. He would never forget his first case, in which he had had to take into custody a violent and appallingly drunk worker at an electrical substation before he caused others harm. During his career he had brought in poachers, wife beaters, con men, car thieves, and drunk drivers. He had dealt with burglars, drug dealers, r...
