The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Book 4/50

If you can make it through the first 300 pages or so, this book is smooth sailing up to the end. Or for the next 215 pages, at least.

The first half of this book is devoted purely to introducing all of the players, along with the three major plot points: Reporter Mikael Blomkvist vs. the Swedish Mafia, the Titular Character vs. the World, and this Teeny-Tiny Cold-Case Murder vs. the Other Two Plot Points. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for setting the stage by giving us backstory and character motivation. But I think those 300 pages could have been condensed to, oh say, 100 or so.

Once you get past the months and months is takes Blomkvist to learn the Vangar family tree (starting with Adam and Eve and their third cousins, Gottfried and Henrik) to the point where the cold-case actually manages a breakthrough, the book flies. Unfortunately, you have to survive some severely graphic rape scenes and the least threatening prison experience to get there.

And while I am fascinated by Larsson's leads, I wasn't much interested in the book until the two finally paired up to try and solve the case. Even once they were together, their relationship (as is pretty much any relationship of Blomkvist's) felt insincere, at least in terms of the character Larsson had built up in Lisbeth up until this point.

As for the cold-case plot, there really was only one or two possibilities as to what had happened to Harriet Vanger based on the evidence presented over the course of the first 300 pages. So much of the "solution" was not a big shock to me in the end. But the conclusion (to the Vanger case, that is) did have a few surprises all the same. Unfortunately, the climax is followed by a ~70 page denouement wrapping up the Blomkvist magazine situation that provided the motivation for Mikael's work on the Vanger case in the first place. Ah well. Maybe the next in the series will figure out how to end a mystery on a thrilling note, right?

Anyhoo. There are two movie versions of this book that I have yet to see. Obviously, they will be viewed and dissected, although I'm not at all keen to see how the films interpret the rape scenes at all. I've heard from others that they're rather horrendous to watch.

And while we're talking about the 50/50 challenge, I'd like to point out that this book qualifies for being counted as 2 books, due to it's 500+ page count. As it is only January, and I've been keeping on target with my book/movie counts (and then some), I have decided to only count this as 1 book. If December starts to creep up on me and I'm coming in short, I may re-evaluate that decision. That or when/if I ever manage to finish reading the 500+ pages that is Tyra Banks' Modelland drivel. It's so painful.