The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

I picked up a free hardcover of this around Christmas and never got around to reading it, but now that the second novel by Larsson is out I decided it was about time.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the story of a journalist who is convicted of libel, then offered a position by a wealthy businessman to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of his favorite niece. At first I thought I wouldn't like this book, it starts out with a lot of information about financial journalism and economic information that is way above my head, but once it started to focus on the main mystery the novel got a lot more interesting.

One of the things I found interesting about this book is the fact that it's hard to completely like the main character. Most of the time he isn't bad, but once in a while he displays characteristics that result in serious personalities flaws. There is also a slight difference in the narrative stucture that I can't quite put my finger on, something about the transition between characters I think, that I attribute to the fact that the novel was originally written in Swedish and only recently translated into English.

Overall I think this book was an interesting read, and I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire, which I believe focuses more on the main female character than the male.