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Book Review - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson is the first part of the three-part Millenium trilogy that has become a cult series in the last few years in the mystery thriller genre. Larsson is the first author to have sold more than one million copies on the kindle store in amazon (that is, he has sold a million copies in the ebook format). So, decidely I was very excited when I got hold of my copy (I also read an ebook on my Infibeam PI).

The book has two main characters - Mikael Blomkvist, a financial investigative journalist and Lisbeth Salander, a young social misfit cum computer hacker cum investigator. Blomkvist rund a small magazine and tries to expose the misdeeds of a large businessman in Sweden. He also gets commissioned by an ageing patriarch of a large Swedish conglomerate to investigate the murder of his niece over forty years back. Blomkvist takes up the challenge when Vanger, the old patriarch, promises to give him evidence of some criminal activities by the person he is pursuing. The narrative takes on from there and goes through various twists and turns and ends in a predictive note.

I was, honestly a bit disappointed by the book. It started off really well and then somewhere in between it became quite predictable. Larsson probably tried to do much with the characters and in trying that the suspense was a casualty.

For people who are keen readers of mystery thrillers, this is a reasonably good read. Though I will not rate it as great. Maybe a 7 out of 10.

Taking a breather before starting on the second book of the series - "The Girl Who Played with Fire".

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