It is is an award-winning novel by the late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson.
At his death in November 2004 he left three unpublished novels that made up the trilogy. And this book is the first of the series. The original name of the book in Swedish is called The Man who hates Women and after reading this you will understand why.
It is a story of serial murders and corporate corruption several, the novel takes in complicated international financial fraud and the horrific past of a wealthy Swedish industrial family. When reading this book, you almost have to draw a table or drop down notes of the various characters involve and keep track of them.
The story begins with the court case of a middle-aged journalist, Mikael Blomkvist. He is the publisher of a magazine called Millennium, which is kind of like a "watchdog" of big coporation. He published an article of the Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström and the corruption and shadow dealings that company has been involved in. This leads to the attack of Wennerstrom and he was brough to court for trial which proved his claims to be untrue and he was given 3 months of prison sentence and a large fine.
When Mikael thinks his career and his company is about to end, he receives an assignment from industrialist Henrik Vanger, the retired CEO of the Vanger company. He is asked to write a biography of the Vanger family as a cover up. His real mission is to investigate the disapperance of Harriet Vanger, the granddaugher of Henrik's brother over 30 years ago. After the death of his brother, he brought her and her brother Martin into his care. Harriett disappeared on a weekend when all the family were gathered in their hometown-the Hedestad Island, On that fatal day, the only bridge that connects the island to the mainland was blocked due to a crash which made it like a locked-room mystery.Henrik suspects that Harriet was killed by a family member and that there is a secret within the family. It started to capture my attention when I got to this part-possible murder and locked room?? Apart from the financial reward that he will receive, Henrik also promised to give him some information which could bring down Wennerström. He finally accepts the offer and moves to live close to Henrik for his work.
On the other hand, Lisbeth Salander is introduced into the story. This confused me a bit at the beginning as I could not see the connection. She is a victim of authorities all her life. And being a punk, she's been assigned a trustee who takes care of all aspect of her life. She works in Milton Security and is regarded as his boss Dragan Armanskij as one of the best investigators within the company-popping her head into secrets and personal life of people has become her hobby. At the beginning of the story, she is hired by Henrik to investigate Mikael before he decides to give him the offer. As for her personal life, after the death of her previous guardian, she is given Nils Bjurman, a lawyer as her new trustee. However, Nils is not what he seems to be on the outside. In exchange for access to her bank accounts and freedom, Nils offers Lisbeth a deal. She will play the "adult game" with him and in turn, she will have access to a portion of her money. After being raped for two times, she decides to take control back to her life. She confronted Nils which turns out that she has the second rape on video. She will release it to the public if Nils does not follow what she says!! Nils agrees and she finally has her freedom back.
On the other hand, Mikael begins his work but it does not yield a lot so far. I have to say this part of the story drags a bit. It accounts how he reviews all the information gathered by Henrik again and how he gets to know all the family members of the Vanger clan. You have to be patient when you get to this point as no major event or discovery happens until after about 280 pages.
It's time that Mikael begins his 3 months imprisonment. After he gets out, he starts the investigation again and this time, he gets something. From some old photos and Harriet's notebook, he finds some important clues. Using Bible quotes, Harriett noted down descriptions which detailed some murders of women in the past 40 years. All the victims were subjected to sexual and physical abuses before begin killed. When I got to this part, it all started to make sense. The book is divided into a four parts and at the beginning of each, the author put a statement such as the percentage of women in Sweden who have been sexually abused at least once in their life. With the new evidence, Mikael requires extra help and Henrik introduces Lisbeth to him. Lisbeth, being a victim of sexual crime herself, takes the offer. And I believe this is the reason why the author borders to account so much about Lisbeth at the beginning
The two of them finally get to the bottom of this mystery. There is one or we should say a pair of serial killers within the family which turns out to be Harriet's brother and father. They killed in various spots where they went to on business for the company. However, the sickest part of this all is that Harriet is also a victim herself. She was raped by both her father and brother and this sounds as worse as the evil father in Austria!! After the death of her father, which she contributed to, her brother continued to abuse her and hence she decided to leave the country, with the help of her cousin. Even though it is quite disturbing, this part of the story does end happily. Having heard the death of her brother in a car crash, Harriett, when Mikael went to visit her in Australia, promised to go back to Sweden to reunite with her family. However, this is not the end of the story yet!!
It's getting near to the one year anniversary of the court case with Wennerström. With the help of Lisbeth, who is also a professional hacker(which makes sense why she is such a good investigator!) , Mikael gets new information from the firm and he puts it all into a book. It results in a big impact on the news and the stock market, which leads to the downfall of the firm. I think this kind of shows us the power of media.
Overall, it is quite a very good crime thriller, with a lot of suspense and you never know what is going to happen next. It's a different kind of crime thriller as there is no inspector xxx or officier and the main guy is a jorunalist. I also like the way they the author lays unrelated characters and events on the table at the beginning and how he then links them together to form the story.
On the other hand, I think the main theme of the story is about the fact that everyone/ every family/every firm has a secret and nothing does not look as it seems, just like Martin-I never guess the hardworking CEO is the killer. And a lot of people go to a lot of effort to hide secrets, similar to the end of the story when he finally knows the truth, Henrik, asks Michael not to publish the biography with the truth while still giving him the reward. After considering the the consequences and the pain that Harriet will have to go through when the truth is revealed, Mikael decides not to disclose it to the public. However, Lisbeth does not think it this way. It seems some secrets are meant never to be known while some must be known. If revealed, a secret will result in pain and suffering in one individual while giving justice back to a large group, how should we decide to tell the truth of not?
And remember I mentioned about the original title of the book-The Man who hates woman. Personally, I think this fits better to the book as the serial killers who target women are the focus of the book. The English title actually describes Lisbeth as she is the one with the dragon tattoo!!
The English translated version of the next two books in the trilogy will be coming out soon. I can't wait for the next two fiction of the series. I bet this time round, the story will be focused around Lisbeth, kind of like the switch in the focus from this book.
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Utterly (choose superlative)
For me, no superlative is undeserved, either for this novel or the other two (forget Spider's Web). Excellent, excellent writing (and translating). If you've seen the Swedish films, which are good, then check out the actual novels. Totally exceptional - and one of these days I must try Billy's pan pizza.
