Gotta Read About That Girl!

A word to the wise is sufficient. Go ahead and order all 3 installments of this hotter-than- a-pistol trilogy by Stieg Larsson. As quickly as you finish the first, you will be reaching for the second, and then on to the third page-turner. Be sure to read these psycho-social mysteries in sequence (that would be The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), and don’t get lost in, or confused by, the Swedish character and place names. The character development and storyline is so robust, in your own mind, you will be communicating like a native Swede after 50 pages!

The first of a trilogy - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multi-pierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable super-hacker. Larsson's carefully calibrated tale is more than a grisly, cynical world-view of his country, the legal system and the modern world at large. At its core, it is a fascinating character study of a young woman who easily masters computer code, but for whom human interaction is almost always more trouble than it is worth. It is a story of an investigative reporter who chooses a path of less resistance than Salander but whose humanity reaches out to many. She is fascinating: ruthless and tough to a fault, yet internally vulnerable, struggling to comprehend her own feelings. She has an appeal that draws you to her, rooting for her, and wanting to understand her. Lisabeth is unforgettable, unlike most characters that populate mystery thrillers.

As appealing as the trilogy is, the real life back-story of the author and his untimely death is stranger than fiction. As Larsson climbed the seven flights of stairs to his publishers’ offices (the elevator was out of order) to deliver the third installment of the trilogy, he was struck by a fatal heart attack. Since his death in 2004, his family and his longtime companion are locked in a bitter legal dispute over ownership of a fourth installment of “that girl” that exists only on his laptop computer…and that computer is in the possession of his companion. In an ironic twist, the Swedish legal system now holds in balance the fate of the next installment of Lisbeth’s life.

And we should mention that the trilogy is available for your Kindle as well!