The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo By Stieg Larsson

My Review Rating 5/10

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO – By Stieg Larsson Book 1 of The Millenium Trilogy

The Main character in this book is Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist/author who has been recently convicted of libel and is possibly facing the end of his career. Then, just as Blomkvist is trying to figure out if his career is salvageable, an elderly tycoon named Henrik Vanger steps in with a lucrative offer of employment.

On the face of it, Henrik Vanger would like Blomkvist to write his autobiography of the Vanger family. But Henrik also wants Blomkvist to help him solve a cold murder case, and if the fabulous amounts of money he is willing to pay aren't enough of an enticement, he also offers to help Blomkvist defend himself against the presumably false libel charges, which makes this novel both a murder mystery and a revenge saga.
Into this scenario is thrown wild card Lisbeth Salander, a deranged computer hacker who joins forces with Blomkvist, and turns out to be the most interesting character in the book.

It is obvious that the author has put a lot of time and effort and probably many years of research into writing this book, it is also obvious that he is extremely intelligent. The problem with this novel for me was that it takes at least 100 pages before anything happens. There is a section in this book where Henrik talks to Blomkvist about the family history which at I thought further along in the book would turn out to be relevant, but it wasn’t, so why did the author include pages and pages unnecessary information ? It was completely boring and really irritating that at one point I just wanted to throw in the towel.
Another thing that irritated me slightly was the lengthy passages that were written as conversations which were dull, hard to follow, and at certain points I was unsure of who was saying what and to whom. Maybe that was due to the translation more than the fault of the writer but I am not sure why it was written that way andit did not demonstrate anything interesting enough about the characters to justify the presentation of the information.

If you can grin and bear it and get passed the 100 page mark, then this book turns out to just ok, are there better books to read though. YES. In no way is the hype justified with this book. The only saving grace was the character of Lisbeth Salander. She is somebody who I would like to read more about.