If you have not yet tried The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, ‘tis the season for a well written and engaging mystery. It is the first of three connected books written by a Swedish journalist who passed away in 2004. Embarking on the trilogy is a formidable undertaking since in total they include more than 1800 pages. Yet the task is well worth the effort. The writing is clear and forceful and the novel is hard to put down. Once started, the reader wants to know what caused the events of the story, as well as the back story of the two main characters, and is drawn onward to the next two books.
Mikael Blomkvist, a magazine journalist, is hired by a wealthy industrialist to reinvestigate the disappearance of his niece forty years earlier. “The Girl” is Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant computer hacker who, though highly moral, has a somewhat unique sense of justice created by her own upbringing. Intrigued by a case being investigated by Blomkvist, Salander assists him to complete a challenging and convoluted excavation into a financial quagmire. Along the way, she becomes involved in the case of the missing heiress as well. The ending leads the reader on to The Girl who Played with Fire and, finally, to The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.
Marie King teaches 5th through 8th Grade English and literature at Mizzentop Day School. A resident of Pawling for thirteen years, she has also led book groups for adults, children, and parents and children at the Pawling Library. Ms. King has edited and published The Voyage of the Hougoumont and Life at Fremantle: The Life of an Irish Rebel and John Devoy’s Catalpa Expedition.
