Book Review #59 - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Good mysteries are like chick-lit for me. The book might not be a prize winning, heart soaring, profound thinking sort, but the tension and lure of what happens on the next page keeps me coming back for more.

I assumed with the good reviews and attention The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was getting, it would be something I would enjoy. I did not.

I open mysteries/thrillers with open eyes, knowing that most contain dark subject matter. Murder is usually involved. Crimes are usually committed. Lives are usually in peril.

This book, however, took the darkness and dank to a whole new level. None of the characters were likable. Of course, you expect some characters who live in the underbelly of society to have unappealing lifestyles, but normally, there is a protagonist or detective, or someone...anyone, to cheer for. Hope for. Like. Even just a little.

I found no such character in this story. Stieg Larrson's novel opens with Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist (I know...yawn), whose career is on the rocks after he is convicted of libeling a well known financier in his small, liberal magazine. In order to save the magazine, and to earn some money during the time when he won't be working, he accepts an unconventional offer from Henrik Vagner, a former corporate mogul, to investigate the thirty year-old disappearance of his niece. Charming (or distracting, depending on your mood) as the Swedish names are, Mikael is a yucky guy.

He sleeps with his boss, who happens to be married. His daughter is all but forgotten in his exciting world of kronas (that's money). While he's living on an isolated island during his investigation, he sleeps with a lonely fifty year-old woman. And then, when he finds help in the deeply troubled, but brilliant Lisbeth Salander (hint...she has a dragon tattoo), who looks fourteen but, thankfully, is of legal age, he sleeps with her too. And he's the good guy, folks.

I admit, Lisbeth is a fascinating character and her chapters were the most intense, by far. A victim of the system, she has no respect for societal rules because they had no respect for her. Still, as interesting, scary and sad as she is, I still couldn't root for her. It would be like cheering for Hannibal Lecter.

With no redeeming characters, I was at least hoping for a knock-my-socks off plot. But, the mystery surrounding Vagner's niece is murky, impossible to solve on my own because the people in my life are not complete psychopaths. If the main characters are seedy, the secondary characters are heinous. Double yuck.

Add the confusing Swedish culture, towns, money and names, and I didn't enjoy reading this. I admit the writing was good, but it came with too little reward.