The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

by Stieg Larsson

I thought this book was crap because on one of the book covers there was a picture of a young punk goth looking girl with a middle-ages guy. I thought it was one of those guy falls in love with girl half his age kind of story.

 So goes the saying, Don't judge a book by its cover. And indeed that's true for this. Ok, I bought the book with this cover which looks better than the other cover anyways. And I bought it only after my sister told me it was a good read.

Well, it does not disappoint. it follows the life of Mikael Blomkvist, an economic journalist. He is convicted of libel case for writing things that did not have sufficient proof to back it up. And so his reputation and career was going down the drain. Then came the retired business mogul, Henrik Vanger with a very interesting proposition. He wanted Mikael to investigate the death of his niece who died almost 2 decades ago. Mikael was reluctant but agreed after Henrik convinced him by providing him with a significant financial compensation. Henrik also promised he would deliver him with a story to destroy the company that originally charged him with libel. So there begins the fun.

Parallel to this story is that of Lisbeth Salander, who is a anti social computer genius. The story gets interesting when Mikael and Lisbeth's paths intersect and they work together to solve the mystery of Henrik Vanger's niece, Harriet Vanger.

This is such a wonderful book. You get a feel that the characters are real people and multi dimensional. Sometimes reading books like Sheldon, thought the pace is riveting, the characters can seem to serve the purpose too well. But with this book, their development seem very true to their own personality and it really is a clash of all these personalities that bring about a truly remarkable story.

I love this book and can't wait to read the other 2 in the series. Rest in peace Stieg Larsson, I wish you had more time to write more wonderful stuff.