“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson

Yay or Nay?

Yay! (79%)

Consensus: A dark, multi-layered crime story driven by its decidedly unconventional pair of sleuths and the late author’s political conscience.

Description: An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle … [more]

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27 Book Reviews for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson

Misogyny and murder stalk the pages of a novel that exposes the flip-side of Scandinavian liberalism.

Published the 13th day of February, 2009 in The Independent | Reviewed by Emma Hagestadt | Full Review
Despite Blomkvist’s own description that what happened to Harriet is a “locked-room mystery in island format,” Larsson is such a skilled storyteller that this novel is much more than that. It’s a smart financial thriller, a believable if unconventional love story, and a family saga laced with enough betrayals, treachery and just plain sibling nastiness that, as one character says, the Vangers “make Shakespeare’s tragedies” seem like “light entertainment.”
Published the 27th day of December, 2008 in Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel | Reviewed by Carole E. Barrowman | Full Review
Imagine the movies of Ingmar Bergman crossed with Thomas Harris’ novel “The Silence of the Lambs.” … Larsson’s mesmerizing tale succeeds because … he has written a why-dunit rather than whodunit.
Published the 9th day of October, 2008 in USA Today | Reviewed by Deirdre Donahue | Full Review
It is an exceptional effort for a first-time crime novelist. In fact, it’s a fine effort for any crime novelist…. This book is meticulously plotted, beautifully paced, and features a cast of two indelible sleuths and so many juicy suspects that the book’s length becomes a plus…. Larsson … deftly works in issues he was concerned about – right-wing extremism, violence against women, a docile Swedish business press – without letting the politics overpower the story.
Published the 12th day of October, 2008 in The Boston Globe | Reviewed by Ed Siegel | Full Review
He tells his long crime story cleverly, and caps it with a breathtaking manipulation of a multinational’s holdings, but the zing in “Dragon Tattoo” is inked in its two central characters…. The book itself resembles a dossier…. Larsson starts each chapter with precise dates, interlocks his plot and beckons the reader into the case.
Published the 26th day of September, 2008 in The Plain Dealer | Reviewed by Karen Long | Full Review
Classic parlor crime fiction with many modern twists…. The writing is not beautiful, clipped at times … and with a few too many falsely dramatic endings…. But it is a compelling, well-woven tale that succeeds in transporting the reader to rural Sweden for a good crime story.
Published the 17th day of September, 2008 in Los Angeles Times | Reviewed by Marjorie Miller | Full Review
Larsson’s leads are oddly attractive in their complete disinterest in being liked…. When the reporter and the hacker wind up in real peril, it only creates more loose ends in the case, but it doesn’t feel like a stall.
Published the 17th day of September, 2008 in The Onion A.V. Club | Reviewed by Ellen Wernecke | Full Review
The allure is the pacing of at least three seperate plots and their crafted convergence to climactic effect…. Larsson hooks the reader with deft interchanges between these plots, buoyed by his intimate understanding of corporate and private investigation worlds.
Published in Time Out Sydney | Reviewed by BJ Falkenmire | Full Review
Larsson’s take on crime is refreshingly different.
Published the 22nd day of November, 2008 in The Guardian | Reviewed by Sue Arnold | Full Review
It all takes too long to get where it’s going and trickles on afterward for way too many pages. If Larsson had cut to the chase, this would have worked, but it doesn’t.
Published the 5th day of October, 2008 in St. Petersburg Times | Reviewed by Kit Reed | Full Review
Larsson’s two protagonists … make this novel more than your run-of-the-mill mystery: they’re both compelling, conflicted, complicated people, idiosyncratic in the extreme, and interesting enough to compensate for the plot mechanics, which seize up as the book nears its unsatisfying conclusion.
Published the 29th day of September, 2008 in The New York Times | Reviewed by Michiko Kakutani | Full Review
It’s a big, intricately plotted, darkly humorous work, rich with ironies, quirky but believable characters and a literary playfulness that only a master of the genre and its history could bring off.
Published the 21st day of September, 2008 in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Reviewed by Michael Helfand | Full Review
As fine, complex and rewarding a novel as this may be, my main quibble is that Salander, who is secondary to Blomkvist, really should be the focus, since she is by far the most interesting and distinct of the characters.
Published the 28th day of September, 2008 in The Dallas Morning News | Reviewed by Edward Nawotka | Full Review
An intelligent, ingeniously plotted, utterly engrossing thriller that is variously a serial-killer saga, a search for a missing person and an informed glimpse into the worlds of journalism and business…. Lisbeth is a punk Watson to Mikael’s dapper Holmes, and she’s the coolest crime-fighting sidekick to come along in many years…. One must struggle with bewildering Swedish names, but that’s a small price to pay…. It’s a book that lingers in the mind.
Published the 22nd day of September, 2008 in The Washington Post | Reviewed by Patrick Anderson | Full Review
The ballyhoo is fully justified. I usually resist long crime novels, but at over 500 pages, this hardly sagged…. The novel scores on every front – characters, story, atmosphere and the translation.
Published the 18th day of January, 2008 in The Times | Reviewed by Marcel Berlins | Full Review
The tattooed girl of the title …. is a wonderful creation, but points up the lifelessness of the other characters. I can tell it is a book motivated by righteous anger, but it does not make me feel or share that anger.
Published the 8th day of March, 2008 in The Telegraph | Reviewed by Jake Kerridge | Full Review
A lack of twists and turns is compensated for by entertaining contemplation of how Blomqvist the unfeasible sex machine manages to solve crimes with his trousers round his ankles most of the time.
Published the 17th day of January, 2008 in The Telegraph | Reviewed by Roger Perkins | Full Review
Swedish crime fiction, like the country itself, has both class and a social conscience. It was only a matter of time before it produced its own “War And Peace.” This behemoth of a novel … is it. “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” even comes with its own sprawling genealogical table to help you keep track of who’s who. Since almost everyone is called Vanger, you need it…. [Larsson creates] his own vast smorgasbord of crime-novel conventions,… avoiding both parody and homage by a whisker. What he has come up with is the total detective novel.
Published the 22nd day of February, 2008 in The Sydney Morning Herald | Reviewed by Robert Dessaix, | Full Review
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a memorable debut and deserves most of the hype…. Crime fiction has seldom needed to salute and mourn such a stellar talent as Larsson’s in the same breath.
Published the 20th day of January, 2008 in The Times | Reviewed by Joan Smith | Full Review
This is a long thriller but it sustains the reader’s interest, partly because it’s well-plotted but more, perhaps, because of the anger Larsson directs at his targets. Misogyny, financial corruption, murder, fascism all have a contribution to make, and Larsson implies that ultimately they spring from the same source. The book may not be particularly subtle but it’s highly effective and a very good read.
Published the 20th day of February, 2008 in The Spectator | Reviewed by Andrew Taylor | Full Review
Essentially, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” has two major story arcs…. The book picks up speed quite nicely after the Vanger plot line is introduced, and in the end the financial crime aspect is a valuable, if not completely seamless, addition.
Published the 22nd day of September, 2008 in The New York Sun | Reviewed by Martha Mercer | Full Review
The book is terrible, but there’s certainly something to it…. To call the dialogue wooden would be an insult to longbows and violins…. This book appealed to a part of me, but just not a part I like…. It is indeed gripping, but … its failings make it much less satisfying.
Published the 3rd day of October, 2008 in The New York Observer | Reviewed by Will Heinrich | Full Review
[Larsson] has up his sleeve two extremely engaging protagonists. Once these characters have appeared, our surrender to the novel is guaranteed…. Reading “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” … is a bittersweet experience. We are constantly reminded that an accomplished literary voice has been stilled.
Published the 11th day of January, 2008 in The Independent | Reviewed by Barry Forshaw | Full Review
Larsson sends out tendrils of plot until the tales of Salander and Blomqvist become one…. The first-time author’s excitement at his creation is palpable, strangely, in the book’s sometimes amateurish construction…. To his credit, though, he always regains control and restores momentum.
Published the 17th day of March, 2008 in The Age | Reviewed by Jeff Glorfeld | Full Review
The journalist and the hacker are ingenious, believable creations, in conflict with themselves and each other. They form an incongruous but credible bond as everyone they meet is against them…. This is a striking novel, full of passion, an evocative sense of place and subtle insights into venal, corrupt minds. It’s sad that a potentially great crime-writing career was ended almost before it began.
Published the 6th day of January, 2008 in The Guardian | Reviewed by Peter Guttridge | Full Review
If Larsson’s book feels just a little amateurish, then perhaps that works to its advantage. This never feels like a by-the-numbers thriller. The twists and revelations work all the better for being worked for, rather than flung at the reader.
Published the 24th day of February, 2008 in The Independent | Reviewed by Jonathan Gibbs | Full Review
If the middle section of “Girl” is a treat, the rest of the novel doesn’t quite measure up…. Nor will “Girl” win any awards for characterization…. Even after 460 pages, it’s not clear whether Blomkvist cares, whether he’s troubled by his lack of intimacy or simply resigned to it. Is he stoic or merely Swedish?… But the real disappointment … comes in its final section…. The story of his revenge is boring and implausible…. And so Girl ends blandly.
Published the 14th day of September, 2009 in The New York Times | Reviewed by Alex Berenson | Full Review

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