Publishers Weekly says -- Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Larsson. At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden's dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title, Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption—at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman. Larsson died in 2004, shortly after handing in the manuscripts for what will be his legacy.
The Book Snobs Gathering
The Snobs gathered at Janna's house on August 2 for dinner and discussion. Okay, there was also some wine. Janna served a delicious "southern smorgasbord" that included ham, biscuits, cucumber salad, 7-layer salad, assorted relishes, corn, and green beans. We also enjoyed a yummy, but lite, orange cake.
The Snobs were unanimous in liking this book, although some found the subject matter disturbing. We agreed that it got off to a slow start, but once you made it past the first 100 pages, the pace definitely picked up. Everyone's favorite character from the book was Lisbeth Salandar.
Some of the Snobs have already started reading the second book in the series.
