This Hardcover Book item from Knopf was reviewed on 11-Oct-2008.
Search ISBN:0307269752 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Reference Book. Classifications : Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General Mystery & Thrillers Subjects Books Hardcover Binding (binding) Refinements Books Printed Books Format (feature_browse-bin) Refinements Books . Click the following link to view the cover of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Related topics: Contemporary. Subjects. Books. General. Mystery & Thrillers. Subjects. Books. Hardcover. Binding (binding). Refinements. requestid: 33ae94e2-c2ef-4c5c-8098-59a001b68fe0
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1) Hardcover Book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Knopf. At first this book seems like a predictable formula thriller complete with brutal murders and violent rape scenes as well as contrived timing of discoveries and life saving feats of heroism...but upon closer examination it appears to be a scathing commentary on the many ills of society.
On the surface...
Journalist Mikael Blomkvist has just learned that he has been convicted for libel against the powerful businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstrom and will be serving time in jail in the near future. But before he begins to serve his time he´s hired to look into the mysterious death of a sixteen year old girl. The girl, Harriet Vanger, disappeared forty years ago, her body still hasn´t been found. Her aging great uncle has been obsessed with finding out what happened to her. The uncle has offered to pay Blomkvist a ridiculous sum of money as well as giving him incriminating evidence to bring down Hans-Erik Wennerstrom if he will commit to looking into the circumstances of Harriet´s death for one year. Blomkvist agrees and with the help of his assistant Lisbeth Salander he grasps the thread that will enable him to unravel the mystery surrounding Harriet´s death.
Beyond the obvious...this is a story rich with criticisms of the unethical, corrupt, greedy and opportunistic in society. The corrupt and evil are served what seems like fair and just rewards for their crimes. But what does that say about those serving up the justice. Even our heroes need to be examined, how do they stand up to scrutiny?
For me this was a difficult novel to get into. There were many references that were purely Swedish in nature that I didn´t get. There were brand names, government agencies and other references that left me wondering "what the hell are they saying?". I think that the translation could have been done so that it made the Swedish references more clear to the rest of the world (or specifically "ugly-Americans" like myself).
It´s not a horrible story, though it is rather graphic and violent. I thought many of the relationships were unrealistic, the character descriptions were conflicting and the dialog was often unbelievable and while I don´t think Larson was the worlds best writer, I have to say that I think he tells a decent story that pulls you in and makes you want to find out ´who dunnit´.
I found the most compelling part of the story the character Lisbeth Salander. Larson left us hanging as far as her history is concerned and I will probably read the next installment, ´The Girl Who Played With Fire´, just to find out more about her (it´s scheduled to be released January 2009).
If you liked this you might want to try Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger, I thought that was very well done and for some reason the character Lisbeth Salander reminds me of Unger´s Ridley Jones.
¤ 2) Hardcover Book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Knopf. Mr. Larsson wrote two sequels not yet translated. I´m putting them on my "must read" list.¤ 3) Hardcover Book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Knopf. Big disappointment
Starts off slow, then gets better, end is a disappointment. A waste of my precious reading time.
Barbara Lyons¤ 4) Hardcover Book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Knopf. This book was slow at the begining. After chapter 2, the pace picks up and you can not put it down. Lots of twists and turns. Enjoy.¤ 5) Hardcover Book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Knopf. Dysfunctional families often provide great fodder for mystery. Stieg Larsson uses the formulaic "locked room mystery" and instead of ten little Indians populates the crime scene with members of a vast family enterprise who comprise an important part of Sweden´s industrial elite.
What happened to Harriet Vanger, beloved niece of the family´s patriarch, who disappeared from the face of the earth in 1966? The question has haunted Henrik Vanger for thirty -six years. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced journalist. Blomkqvist facing a short stint in the pen after a conviction for the criminal libel of another Swedish industrialist, has not many other job prospects. He agrees to spend a year writing a family history while looking into the details of the unsolved crime. In his work. Blomkqvist is eventually joined by Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant, tattooed and pierced freelance researcher,whose computer skills give her access to information not generally available to the public, or even the police.
The amateur inquiry into this extended clan quickly focuses on several of the family´s black sheep, members with strong political sentiments before and during the Second World War. Could these sentiments have may have triggered an apparent murder a generation later? Perhaps, the journalist wonders, the clusters of insanity with certain branches of the family tree contain homicidal tendencies not previously detected. Or maybe the motive was greed, was young Harriet the natural successor to her uncle Henrik.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first part of a trilogy delivered by Larsson prior to his untimely death in 2004. It quickly became a huge bestseller, not just in Sweden, but throughout Europe. Originally entitled Men Who Hate Women this part delves deeply into the evils of misogyny.
Throughout the novel, Larsson pays tribute to female mystery writers, among them Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Sue Grafton, Val McDermid, and Sara Paretsky. The late New England writer Al Blanchard once described to me his membership in Sisters in Crime as being an "honorary sister", Larsson honors the craft and production of women writers in the genre.
This book will make you hungry for the sequel.¤ 6) Hardcover Book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Knopf. A sensation across Europe—millions of copies sold
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. ¤7) Hardcover Book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Knopf. Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there´s no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there´s always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson´s novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don´t want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. --Dave Callanan
¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 8-Nov-2008, 03072697529780307269751, 650-520-940-900-890-810-841-8 
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Book, Image © Knopf
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