The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2005 · Stieg Larsson · 672 pages · Mystery
Stieg Larsson's posthumously published debut is a dense, rewarding crime novel that demands patience and delivers one of modern fiction's most unforgettable characters. Lisbeth Salander, the tattooed hacker at the book's center, is a creation so vivid and original that she transcends the genre around her. The mystery itself is well-constructed, the Swedish setting is atmospheric, and the novel's anger about violence against women gives it a moral weight that most thrillers lack. The first hundred pages are notoriously slow, the Swedish names and corporate details can be disorienting, and the book continues well past its natural climax. But readers who push through the opening find a story that grips hard and doesn't let go.