The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larrson

Last year, I stumbled upon this book at a local Barnes and Nobles….”The Girl with Dragon Tattoo”. It was written by a relatively unheard author Stieg Larrson (unknown to me…) from Sweden. What piqued my interest apart from the cover was the fact that it sold more than 27 million copies around the world in a very short span of time and also won numerous awards viz, NY Times Best Seller. So I thought, why not..I had a long flight ahead….8 hours to be precise…from Seattle to Miami…and this seemed like a good idea to kill some time.

Long story short, I loved the book. It was brilliant. The story is based in Sweden (duh..) and revolves around 2 main characters…Mikael Blomkovist, a 40 year old financial journalist and our Protagonist Lisbeth Salanader, a 25 something girl, dragon tattooed, computer hacker ‘cum’ personal investigator. Together, they try to solve the mystery of a missing girl Harriet Vanger, niece of a well known industrialist Henry Vanger, head of a huge conglomerate…she went missing some 40 years ago during a family gathering on a private island and was presumed dead. I don’t want to give away too much about the story…but its quite entertaining and a page turner. If you like murder mysteries, and are a fan of works by Sidney sheldon’s , Dan Brown’s..then you will feel right at home.

The other 2 books in the trilogy, The Girl who played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornet’s Nest…also revolve around our 2 protagonists…After reading all the 3 books this past year…I found the 2nd book a little less entertaining than the 1st..but definitely a good read and 3rd one even less entertaining than the 2nd one… May be its just me…but the 1st one has set a very high standard for the others to live upto. :)..

So if you are looking for a good read definitely give these a try!