This is a review of the posthumously published Stieg Larsson novel. I did not see the Swedish or American movie.
This was quite an effective mystery novel. Overall it certainly wasn't flawless, and I found the ending a bit disappointing and unrealistic, but it was pretty good.
I knew very little about this book coming in. I only knew that it was a huge international sensation and that there was this character named Lisbeth Salamander or whatever, who's supposed to be badass or whatever. It turns out, however, that the plot is quite interesting. Henrik Vanger is an old guy who's niece disappeared decades ago, and he believes someone killed her and is trying to drive him insane. It's a bit unclear how he's being driven insane because he's just getting flowers every birthday, but apparently that affects him strongly. So he hires a journalist who just lost a libel case to find stuff out.
For a while, Lisbeth Salander carries on a parallel narrative. Eventually she's brought in by the journalist (Blomkvist) and they team up to find the killer.
The setup of the crime is great. First of all, they're uncertain what the crime was. Secondly, it took place on an island where only so many people could have been. Thirdly, it was nearly forty years ago. It's an intriguing premise, to say the least, but Larsson writes to that you never truly doubt that Blomkvist will find out the truth. He comes across a setback here and there, but you know he'll get to the bottom sooner or later, particularly when he introduces Salander as this dirt-digging machine.
You hear a lot about the Lisbeth Salander character, and to be honest, I'm not 100% sure why. She's a good character, fleshed out rather well, and quite interesting and mysterious. But she's not like amazing or whatever. She actually does a few pretty stupid things in the novel, if you ask me. She's without doubt the novel's most interesting character but I don't think she deserves the attention she's gotten.
Of course, a great deal of why she's gotten so much attention is because of the feminist themes of the novel. While I applaud Larsson for applying a theme to an otherwise basic mystery novel, aside from the traditional "you can't trust anyone," I found the feminism to be just about bashing me over the head while I read it. There are statistics about how many women are abused by men at the beginning of each part of the novel, and aside from the thematic connection, there's really nothing these have to do with the plot. With the lack of subtlety I almost felt like a victim of domestic abuse.
Overall, this was quite good. The ending was a little disappointing but I acknowledge that the novel was more about the characters than the plot. Unfortunately, I think the plot might have been more interesting than the characters. Blomkvist for example, we never know too much about, and he ends up having far more resolution than Salander and Henrik Vanger, who are far more interesting. I have some nitpicks, I guess you could say, but I don't like nitpicking about things I like. Overall it was one of the better mystery novels I've read.
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