Fiction: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson
Penguin Books, Rs 350
Stieg Larsson, a Swedish journalist, could not live to see his Millennium Trilogy becoming a runaway hit across the world. But his three works have been received well by people across borders. The first in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo presents the ugly picture of human nature, more so Swedish men’s treatment of women.
Sadism, murder, suicide and a lot of casual sex are commonplace in Larsson’s book. The story begins when Henrik Vanger, an octogenarian industrialist, hires Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who has just lost a libel case under murky circumstances, to investigate the disappearance of his great-niece, Harriet.
Blomkvist takes up the case and hires Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old computer hacker with a photographic memory, violent temper and some serious intimacy issues to assist him in his probes.
The novel picks up momentum as their investigation progresses and in the end Harriet’s case turns out to be connected to a series of murders in the 1950s and ’60s. Though at places the book is dragging, as a whole Larsson’s book gives an exciting reading.
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