The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

This book, originally published in Sweden after Larsson's death, is in many ways an old-fashioned morality tale: Crime, both white-collar and cold-blooded, is at its heart, and it is a scathing indictment of the conscience-shocking behavior of men in power. They embezzle; they rape; they murder. But this idea is not new, and it is not what makes the book so compulsively readable. Rather, it is the murder mystery at the story's center that compels the reader forward: Larsson has, first and foremost, written a heckuva thriller.

The story's protagonist is not a detective but a financial journalist (Larsson himself worked for many years as an editor). Recently (and perhaps wrongly) convicted of libel, Mikael Blomkvist is contacted by Henrik Vanger, an aging former CEO and member of a well-known corporate dynasty, to solve a murder that occurred over 40 years ago: his beloved niece Harriet disappeared without a trace from a small island off the Swedish coast. The murder perplexed family members and police officials alike; nevertheless, Vanger wants Blomkvist to give it a shot.

This premise is one of several moments in the book in which Larsson demands that the reader suspend her disbelief. Blomkvist drops everything to live on an island with Vanger for an entire year; he attracts and beds women with unrelenting ease; his hacker accomplice can gather literally any information he needs within 24 hours. More central to the story's progress is the improbable circumstances under which the teenage Harriet was murdered: Because a fire occurred on the island's only bridge to the mainland that same day, the case is a so-called "locked room mystery." Only about 15 people, all of them members of the Vanger clan, could have actually committed the crime.

I initially balked at what struck me as obvious plot devices. However, this book is not necessarily attempting realism. It is a thriller, and thrillers do not operate under the same rules as realistic fiction, my normal domain as a reader. Harriet's murder is an engaging puzzle precisely because it can be logically investigated and neatly analyzed.

In many ways, though, the murder itself is a plot device, meant to support Larsson's central thesis: power corrupts. Corporate and government officials, both those involved in the murder and those featured in related subplots, are guilty of financial corruption and sadistic personal habits. Yet Larsson's accusatory finger points inward, as well. Even the story's heroes are frequently morally degenerate. Obvious underdogs, righteous journalists, victimized women--they are sympathetic, but they also lie, cheat, and commit violent crimes of their own.

Incidentally, that fact is probably what saves the novel from slipping into self-important moralism: it raises questions even as it indicts. When is violence wrong, and when is it necessary? When should then truth be concealed? When does an end justify the means? These questions are interesting, if not always smoothly or subtly executed, and they have remained with me now that the book is done. But while I read, I read for one reason: What really happened to Harriet that day? The answer, and the manner in which it unfolds, is enough to make the book worth reading.