Mikael Blomquist hurt his reputation as a journalist of
integrity when he ran a story about a businessman that he
couldn't back up with proof. Now, he's prepared to retire
to the "country" for awhile and take on an intriguing task
until he figures out what to do. But as Mikael begins
looking into the 40-year-old disappearance of young Harriet
Vanger, he's drawn into an intricate web of politics and
deceit.
Partnering with him on his quest for the truth is the
decidedly odd but brilliant Lisbeth Salander. Sporting a
dragon tattoo and a standoffish attitude that hides deep
wells of hurt, Lisbeth will pull you through this novel at
a breakneck pace.
I could not put this book down. It's one of the best crime
fiction books I have ever read, and I read it with an
infinite sadness knowing the author delivered three
manuscripts to his publisher and died weeks later. It's
terrible thinking that we'll see no more than those three
books from this fabulous author. Seriously, this is a must-
read book.
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.