Comment

Dec 13, 2017
Larson’s novel is the first of the so-called Millenial Series, a trio of highly popular murder mysteries set in Sweden, the author’s home. Carl Michael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander star in this story and I presume Larson, who died after completing the trilogy, employs these main characters in all three fables (I have not read the other two: The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.) He is a detective and she is a punky, leather-jacketed rebel who becomes his very capable assistant and lover. Blomkvist and Salander get the job of solving the disappearance and probable death of a niece of a Swedish industrialist in this novel. The plot thus allows the author to slowly unveil the suspects who turn out to be the industrialist’s relatives, discarding one after another until the mystery is solved in the final pages. The translation of Larson’s writing into English probably reflects the simple and spare style of the original and so it reads easily. Tensions in the tycoon’s family provide the complexity in this tale. Murder mysteries fall outside of my favorite reading fare, still I can say that this work entertained me well enough.