Sweden

Book: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Author: Stieg Larsson

Original title: Män som hatar kvinnor

Translator: Reg Keeland (aka Steven T. Murray)

Finished: November 2024

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first book in the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. I devoured the whole trilogy years ago when it gained popularity in the U.S. and have been thinking about rereading the books for a little while. Now seemed like a good time so I could include it in this challenge and I decided to try the audiobook for a different experience and because I'm a slower reader.

Henrik Vanger, the figurehead of the Vanger Corporation, recruits Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who has just been found guilty of libel against another business mogul. Blomkvist's assignment, under the guise of writing the Vanger family history, is to figure out what happened to Henrik's niece when she disappeared roughly 40 years earlier. After months of work and his short stay in prison for the libel case, Mikael believes he has a few new leads in the cold case and brings in Lisbeth Salander to help him with his research. What they uncover is a disturbing family secret and what they have to decide is how much to expose.

I found this just as enjoyable the second time around! I am not someone who generally remembers details about books after I have read them, let alone more than a decade later, but I did vaguely remember the ending. It didn't really matter. It was still fun to get to know the characters (again!), the setting, and the path that Mikael takes to complete his assignment.

I am struggling to write a paragraph about the book's "Swedishness" and finding it hard to say what I picked up from the novel versus a few visits to Stockholm or reading further about the author, Stieg Larsson. Femicide and capitalist greed are themes in the book which may be pet causes of the author, but certainly aren't unique to Sweden. I think I'm forgetting some details that may ground this book more firmly in Sweden, but ultimately, while Hedestad and Hedeby Island are the backdrop for the story, the characters and events have a universal appeal.