The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg LarssonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mystery novel by recently deceased Swedish writer, Stieg Larsson. The story behind the book's publication is almost as interesting as the novel itself. Larsson died when The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the final two books in the trilogy had been sent off to a publisher. After his death, a battle ensued between his long time live in girlfriend of 30 plus years (a common law marriage almost anywhere else) and his brother (whom he was not close to) for the rights to the work (and the proceeds). As it stands, I don't think the girlfriend is getting much of anything, but she is writing a book of her own about what life was like with Stieg Larsson.
The book itself is a mystery. A financial journalist gets drawn into a decades old investigation of a missing (and presumed murdered) 16 year old girl. Complicating matters is the history of the family: a rich industrialist clan whose members largely hate each other. On the day of the girl's disappearance there was a car accident that closed down the only accident to Hedeby Island. Where could the girl have gone? If she was killed, where is the body? There was a limited number of people on the island that day, and yet they all seem to have an alibi.
The murder mystery plot is quite good. I want give you any spoilers. But rather than just fun, the subtext of the story is violence against women - indicated both in what is uncovered as the story goes along, and Larsson's section headings (all of which list statistics about violent crimes against women in Sweden). In addition to wanting to write a page turner, Larsson wanted to raise awareness of a very real issue in Swedish culture.
Why only three stars? While I thought the plot was great (especially about 200 pages of the 620 pages in), and the dialogue was interesting, I never really connected with the characters. Perhaps they weren't sympathetic enough. Perhaps I operate from too different a worldview. I never felt like I understood where the main characters were coming from, or why they would decide what they would decide. It was still interesting, but it left me with a disconnect to the book.
Additionally, there were several depictions of violent rape in the story. While I'm sure Larsson included this in an attempt to call attention to how heinous these crimes are against women, I found these pages terribly uncomfortable to read. I believe the fierceness and the horror of the crimes could have been depicted by describing the long-term affects on the victims and their families without a blow by blow account of the attacks themselves. This I'm sure is a point of debate, but I'm writing the review - so there's my opinion.
Not sure if I'm sufficiently motivated to read the next two novels.
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