Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse, no witnesses, no evidence. But her uncle, Henrik, is convinced that she was murdered by someone in her own family - the deeply dysfunctional Vanger clan. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired to investigate, but when he links Harriet's disappearance to a string of gruesome murders from forty years ago, he needs a competent assistant - and he gets one: computer hacker Lisbeth Salander - a tattoed, truculent, angry girl who rides a motorbike like a Hell's Angel and handles makeshift weapons with the skill born of remorseless rage. This unlikely pair form a fragile bond as they delve into the sinister past of this island-bound, tightly-knit family. But the Vangers are a secretive lot, and Mikael and Lisbeth are about to find out just how far they're prepared to go to protect themselves - and each other.
I'll admit that I'm not usually a mystery/thriller reader... but if this is supposed to be one of the best of that genre (as indicated by its popularity), that doesn't bode well for the rest of the genre. Even at the climax, the action ranked at a tepid 5 on a scale of 10 for me. The writing was weak at best -- although I'll forgive that one since it was translated from Swedish (I think?). Most of all Lisbeth Salander annoyed me. She wasn't edgy -- she was what a 50-year-old man thinks is edgy. I actually put the book down in disgust when she throws a hissy fit after Blomkvist figures out she has a photographic memory. Oh boohoo, you have an awesome gift that pretty much everyone on the planet would die to have, you are such a freak. *eyeroll*
