"Dragon tattoo" in the title should have clued me in

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson has received many great reviews along with the two books that follow it in the best-selling series. I, however, cannot give it a great review like most others have. Don’t get me wrong, if you can get past the sexual perversions of a couple of the characters (it is somewhat graphic in one section), and the explicit language used, it was a good book. It has mystery, suspense, crime, drama, and a small touch of humor, but it’s just not my style.

I like mysteries, but when I say I like mysteries I mean I like mysteries in the vein of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler (and, let’s be honest, the Encyclopedia Brown series). Larsson’s novel has all of the makings for a good mystery story, at the same time the crime they are trying to solve is from the 1960s and very intriguing, but it’s the way they go about solving it that bothers me. An investigative reporter, Mikael Blomkvist takes on the job, he goes through papers and old photographs, (this I can handle, this I enjoy). It’s when he starts working with Lisbeth Salander, a skilled computer hacker that my interest starts to wane.

Technology takes the fun out of what would otherwise be a great gumshoe story. If you’re doing all of your work from a computer there is no chance of getting gum on your shoe anyway so the name doesn’t even fit. If this story had been written 15 to 20 years ago, before we relied on technology to assist us with every need, Salander’s role would have been much different and I would have a much higher opinion of the novel. Then again, without technology they may have never been able to solve the mystery. As it stands, however, I have little desire to move on to the second novel in the series.