the plot points to be pretty transparent
How was the plot?
I'm skeptical of "libris populi," books that suddenly wash over society to public and critical acclaim. I was really burned by "The DaVinci Code" (we all were), about how new and exciting and different the writing was, and you have to give Dan Brown credit; he took an idea that was floating around for years and brought it to the public's attention. But the book itself was nothing but a whole chase novel and it wasn't a surprise that it was quickly made into a movie. Recently "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" has been creating the same sort of public reaction. Fortunately, there's a little more in "Girl" to hold a readers attention and worth the price of the trip that author Stieg Larsson takes you on."The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is the dual story of Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading financial reporter in Stockholm, and Lisbeth Salander (a play on salamander?), an anti-social possibly mentally ill but gifted private investigator.As "The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" starts Mikael Blomkvist has been found guilty of Swedish libel laws because he wrote a story about a prominent industrialist that he couldn't back up with documentation. Mikael takes a leave of absence from his magazine, Millennium, until the heat is off. Mikael accepts a position from Henrik Vanger, the head of another prominent industrialist family to ostensibly write a chronicle of the Vanger family history. Mikael's actual assignment is find the killer of Harriet Vanger who disappeared off an island at a family gathering while the island was cut off from the mainland. The classic murder in a locked room scenario. As Mikael crawls through the Vanger family history he discovers a family that put the dysfunction in dysfunctional. There are Nazi's in the family, religious zealotry, abusive parents, promiscuous children, relatives who embrace the family and relatives trying to disavow the family connection at all costs. A little bit of something for everybody.The parallel story is, of course, Lisbeth Salander's. Lisbeth is literally "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Lisbeth is a ward of the state, although in her mid 20's, her life has been held in check because of a mysterious childhood incident that has put her at the mercy of a failed system and corrupt guardians. Lisbeth has a very subjective moral code that deals mostly in black and white assumptions of people. Her saving grace is her abilities to find information via computer (a hacker) and her job as a freelance private detective.I don't read a lot of mystery's, but I found a lot of the plot points to be pretty transparent that details seemingly mentioned off handedly by characters are going to be important in the solution to the mystery, almost like having it highlighted IMPORTANT POINT HERE! The motivating reason for Mikael to move to Hedeby, to solve the mystery of the missing and presumed dead Harriet is predicated on an obvious bit of misdirection in a basic misunderstanding of motives. I think it is assumed by the author that the reader will assume the interpretation of the characters is correct.The title of the book when it was published in Sweden was "Men Who Hate Women." I read an interview with the U.S. publisher of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" and the title and cover design were made more intriguing for the U.S. audience. But "Men Who Hate Women" (if not as catchy and intriguing) is a more apt and descriptive title of what the book is about. Early on Lisbeth is given very little to do with the main plot of finding the murderer of Harriet Vanger, but she runs into her own man who hates women. The development of Lisbeth's character is slow in coming, the bits and pieces of her back story are intriguing and develop a mystique around her; Larsson is slow to get her into the central mystery of the story.You're probably thinking that with all those shortcomings this is an unfavorable review. No, despite these shortcomings "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" works. The story is simple but elegantly constructed and I found it to be entertaining and readable. The main characters are sympathetic despite their flaws. The bits and pieces we're given of Lisbeth at the beginning are intriguing, like lightning flashes in the dark, we want to see more than her silhouette. Mikael for his faults is a sympathetic character and as he lurches about in the Vanger family history we learn he's basically a decent person, but compared to the Vanger family, most other families would be considered normal. We're also given villains to be shocked at, and not one, but at least three love stories. As all the threads of the mystery are pulled together they seem natural and organic to the characters, no details of the mystery are obscured from the reader, there's no left field revelation that appears out of no where in the solution of the mystery and there's no dues ex machina in it's solution.The proof of the success of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is, is the reader interested in the characters enough to go along and see what happens in the next book of the trilogy? I am.The DVD for "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" comes out July 6th. 