The bestselling Swedish
novel The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo begins as an anti-thriller, devoid of the genre's
usual chapter-to-chapter cliffhangers. The central legal case is stalled for so
long that protagonist Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced journalist, spends half the
novel complaining about the cold, reading other authors' detective stories, and
having affairs. As the weather warms, the fool's errand to which he's devoted
himself gradually turns perilous, and in the sure hands of Stieg Larsson,
seemingly disjointed scenes of waiting take on terrifying import.
Blomkvist is facing the
slow decline of the magazine he co-founded, plus three months in prison for
libel, when he gets an intriguing offer from aging industrialist Henrik Vanger:
Spend a year in Vanger's island hometown under the pretext of writing a
biography of Vanger's family, while investigating the disappearance of a
beloved great-niece whom he believes was murdered by a relative. The catch: She
disappeared 40 years ago, on the same day that an unrelated accident blocked
all through traffic. After a year of effort, Vanger will give Blomkvist the
proof he needs to appeal his judgment and sink the businessman whose corruption
he couldn't prove in court. As Blomkvist digs through piles of police testimony
and pages of the missing girl's journal, he enlists the help of Lisbeth
Salander, an uncannily good hacker with a photographic memory and a rebellious
past.
Larsson's leads are oddly
attractive in their complete disinterest in being liked: Blomkvist is an
anti-sleuth, immune to the allure of payment even when his former career hangs
in the balance, but also to the protests of Henrik's relatives over the
re-opening of the case. Lisbeth, too, prefers her chilly, compartmentalized
assignments to a lasting career. Because they're so well-developed, their
bizarre paths, studded with moments of absurd humor (at one point, an angry
Vanger is described as looking like "an inflated moose") become believable down
to their implications for the rest of Blomkvist's life. When the reporter and
the hacker wind up in real peril, it only creates more loose ends in the case,
but it doesn't feel like a stall. Larsson indulges in some grisly scenes, but
makes it clear that the worst crimes have already taken place in the twisted
memories of those involved. Larsson didn't live to see this first novel or its
two follow-ups published, which only adds to the mystery.