Review by showhost
I was intrigued about this author as his trilogy is praised and always all of them or one of them in the top ten bestsellers, plus Malcolm has previously raved about them.
The first character we meet is 70yr old Henrik Vangar, head of the Vangar dynasty. He is still tormented by the disappearance /murder of his neice 40yrs ago, every year he received a flower on the anniversary of the incident. His neices murder/diappearance was never solved nor her body ever found. Before he dies he vows he wants one last attempt to solve it.
Mikael Blomkvist, a reporter and co-editor/owner of Millenium magazine, finds himself in court on charges of libel after accusing a corrupt businessman of various crimes. He will not reveal his source even when this evidence is pulled out from under him, so faces a prison sentence and resigns his post.
Henrik Vangar approaches Mikael at the start of his self-imposed excile and makes him an offer he can't refuse (money and more dirt on the corrupt businessman). He is to investigate his neices disappearnace under the pretext of writing a Vangar family history.
Lisbeth Salander, a young, thin, punk like, dysfunctional researcher is hired to secretly check out Mikael Blomkvists' past by Henrik Vangar. Lisbeth Salander becomes interested in Blomkvist and the cases he is working on. They form an unlikely team business and social/sexual.
Blomkvist ruffles many family feathers with his digging and delving and is almost killed by a sick (mentally) memeber of the Vangar family who have more skeletons than a churchyard! The mystery is finally solved.
I really enjoyed this book, I couldn't wait to get home so I could read some more. Its a thinking persons crime book almost like Agatha Christies' 10 little indians but much more explicit and raunchy. Lisbeth Salander is a great character, Apergers, photographic memory, dysfunctional upbringing, ward of court and abused. It all makes riveting reading. Ignore the names of the Swedish places they don't mean anything unless you live or have been there and they don't dtract from enjoying the book.
Only one criticism though, the last 40 pages waffled an waned.
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