Year in (Book) Review:The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

First of all, I love -- and I mean passionately LOVE -- that we live in a country where there can be buzz and hype and controversy surrounding a book, of all things. That a tiny little square of paper and ink can spark debate and invoke emotion and make people think. That we're educated enough to appreciate things others write, whether or not we agree. You will nearly never hear me talk about politics, or religion, or things of that ilk -- the former because I couldn't give two hoots and the latter because I hoot very deeply -- but I will go on record as saying that I feel blessed and proud to live in a place where any old person can read any old thing they want to. It's a gift we take for granted, and if you ever question whether or not our military is fighting for things that matter, please try to imagine a little girl somewhere who can't fathom being able or allowed to read anything at all, let alone something controversial or question-inspiring.

And, as soon as I climb down off of this here unexpectedly high horse, I'll get back to the business of book reviews. Giddy up.

I know I'm a little behind the times on this one. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first in a trilogy by Stieg Larsson, and the third book has just been released in hardback. So, I've got some catching up to do, but I wanted to start at the beginning. Surprisingly, while I've heard tons of buzz about the series, I knew nearly nothing about the book itself. Which caught me a bit off guard, and I'm still trying to decide if that's a bad thing or a very good one.

The back cover of the book talks about a murder mystery (ooh...), love story (ahh...), and financial intrigue (o... a... wtf?) White collar crime is hardly the stuff of legendary drama, I thought to myself, but maybe there will be enough murder and enough love to make up for it. There was.

Larsson started off a bit slowly, honestly, and I was a little concerned that I was in for another dud. (I've learned, the hard way that a lot of buzz around a book does not necessarily indicate a good book. Just a buzzed about one.) It picked up though, fairly quickly and in a big way. The title character -- who, interestingly enough, is a key player but not actually the main character, at least in this one -- is a tiny little punk girl who finds herself helping out a disgraced journalist on a case he's been hired to write about. The characters are well-developed and believable, even with their eccentricities and outlandishness, the relationships are fantastic, the pace is great, and I'm looking quite forward to the next one. Word of warning, though, and perhaps a bit of a spoiler: the book goes to some dark places, much darker than you would expect a book about "financial intrigue" to go. I'm not sure how I hadn't heard that at all and so it was really jarring, but again -- good or bad? I wouldn't have wanted any details -- and I won't give you any -- but I think I might have liked a little heads up. So there's yours.

Hoping to read the second book over the Fourth of July holiday -- nothing says love your country like tales of murder and woe!

Interesting little aside: Author Stieg Larsson, Swedish himself, as are the characters and most of the settings of his book, led a very interesting life, most of which was not as a writer but an activist. He lived for several decades with a woman with whom he protested and did activisty type things. He died, very suddenly of a heart attack, having written his trilogy but not published it. The success of the three books came after his death, but because he had no will, under Swedish law his profits and estate have gone to his next of kin -- in this case his father and brother. To date, his life partner of over thirty years has been given absolutely nothing from them. But ... she has Larsson's laptop ... which contains the fourth script in this insanely popular and profitable series. Now that's an intriguing story, my friends.