The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

What a great book.  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson has been written about many times.  It has been very popular.  It's a long book, and doesn't draw you immediately in.  Since it was translated from Swedish, the references to Swedish culture, people, and places confused me at first.  But I decided that those details must not matter, otherwise this book wouldn't be so popular. 

The plot unfolds very slowly but the character development is fascinating (I know, it's not usual for me to like that sort of writing.)  I couldn't put the book down; I found myself thinking about what was going on and what could possibly be the outcome at times when I wasn't reading the book.  I grew to like the main characters, Blomkvist and Salander.  They are very unlikely characters to be in the same book, but the way their lives end up twined together is masterful.

My only complaint is that I thought there were some loose ends that I wish had been addressed by the end of the book.  I don't want to talk about specifics, because I don't want to spoil the book for anyone else. Give this one a try.  Give it 50 to 100 pages before you decide . . .