Book 1

I finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson this morning. It started slowly, and I was tempted to lay it down, but I'm glad I didn't. Larsson needed time to establish the characters so that later their decisions and reactions would be plausible. It put me in mind of classic noir, a bit like The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, but thoroughly modern. The little research I did on Larsson indicated a passion for journalistic integrity and a commitment to scrupulous reporting based on thorough and verifiable research. I'm still mulling over some of the questions the book raised and probably will for quite some time. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series: The Girl Who Played With Fire.

A caveat: No story can appeal to everyone. This book does contain some violence and certain distasteful adult situations, but those scenes are brief and aren't presented merely to appeal to those of a prurient nature.