The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stiig Larsson (Reg Keeland, trans)

Interesting mystery, but I'm not sure I'm a fan. Why does the author think he needs to tell me the model, processor speed, hard drive, and RAM of the investigator's laptop, or the brand of the tape recorder, scanner, and camera of the journalist? An editor needed to really get aggressive on the superfluous information that did nothing to advance the plot.

Also, the characters did not seem very real to me. Take Lisbeth, for example. She's a sympathetic character, but not very believable. It didn't seem realistic that a young women without any education would be such a genius at personal investigation. And at the same time, we've supposed to believe that despite her extreme skill at this, she's totally ignorant of the legal system in her country? The two do not make any sense together - part of her character shows us that she thoroughly researches what is put in front of her, and at the same time we're supposed to ignore that fact.

Ditto for Michel - he's been convicted for libel over an article he wrote. He's a professional journalist and we are supposed to believe he essentially wrote an entire article on hearsay.

Bottom line... the book simply does not hold together and I'm giving up on it.

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