Length 538 pages
Format paperback
Published 2008
Series Millennium #1
My Copy I bought it
My Review
2017 seems to be the year for catching up on locked room mystery reads for me. Earlier I read (listened) to Adrian McKinty's Rain Dogs and Laura Lippman's To The Power of Three and now have finally, after having spent many, many years on my tbr shelf read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. While not a traditional locked room mystery (rather an island) the hallmarks are there in the core murder/mystery.
I think my apprehension in delving into this was a) page count, b) I'd heard it took a long time for the plot to get interesting, and c) I don't tend to read popular fiction all that much (or didn't at least when this came out). I was pleasantly surprised by this book and will be reading the follow-up in the not too distant future.
Despite lengthily periods where not much happens, I kept wanting to read the book. The characters were interesting and there was a little bit of Casual Vacancy about it with the gossiping and secretive backstabbing nature of the Vanger relatives.
For all the talk of Lisbeth, I didn't find her role to be as paramount the to story as I had previously envisioned. Sure she's a key cog in the Millennium Trilogy machine but this book is mostly Mikael's story, the journalist and part owner of Millennium.
I won't rehash the plot, there's really no need to but I will say, for those readers which haven't read the book or who have DNF'd after getting lost in the financial jargon of the opening stanza, be patient, the payoff is worth it.
4 / 5 stars.
