Crime Fiction at its Finest.

It's been a couple weeks since I finished this book, but I definitely wanted to share it with you as a "must-read" if you're a book worm...who is into thrillers or crime mysteries or sex or sexual deviance because this book definitely has all of that and more.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo centers around two main characters, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. Salander is a young Private Investigator often hired to dig up dirt on high-profile executives. Blomkvist is a veteran financial reporter who was recently found guilty of libel and sentenced to three months in prison. The two characters cross paths when Blomkvist is hired by a very rich, very old business man to investigate the disappearance of his niece over 40 years ago.

This is also the first book in the trilogy written by Stieg Larsson, referred to as the "Millenium series". The book was originally written in Swedish and translated into English. At first, it's a little difficult to get past all the Swedish names and locations, but you eventually get used to it since the story is so engaging. We follow Blomkvist as he and Salander uncover the ugly truth behind one of Sweden's most powerful families. There's a healthy dose of crime and sex in the story, which definitely grabbed my attention, but the way the story is written just grabs hold of you and refuses to let go. Every page seemed to raise more questions about the mystery at hand, but also gave you just enough clues to keep you satisfied until you reach the end of the book.

An interesting tid-bit about Stieg Larsson...these books were written to express his disgust for sex crimes and violence against women. Apparently, he had witnessed the gang rape of young girl (also named Lisbeth) when he was a teen, but failed to stop the crime. He spent the rest of his life living in guilt from that experience and it essentially became the inspiration for this series.

I would highly recommend reading this book, especially since it's being made into an American movie (the Swedish adaptation was released in 2009). Rooney Mara plays Salander and Daniel Craig plays Blomkvist in the American adaptation, which is set to be released in December of this year. I'm hoping to read the second book this month so you can bet I'll be posting my reviews of that in a couple weeks. As a tiny warning, I read part of this book while I was in Tampa...alone...in a hotel room...very late at night...it pretty much freaked me out.