Saturday 25 April 2009

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson


 This book is an excellent crime novel set in Sweden. I have read a number of Henning Mankell's novels but this is very different. It's a gripping and fast read, a little graphically brutal here and there, though not excessively.  By that I mean I was able to skim over those parts, enough to realise what was happening but not enough to give me nightmares!  The translation is excellent in that you truly aren't aware that that the book wasn't originally written in English.  That's not often the case, sadly.

I enjoyed the picture it gave of Swedish life, in particular rural and island life.  I have a firm picture of  Hedeby, picturesque villages and summer cabins, so unlike the melancholy and brooding of Mankell's Sweden.

4 comments:

Mandy said...

Oh what a coincidence - I saw someone readng that on the train this week and wondered what it was about.

Sheila @ Paperback Places said...

It's part one of a three part series, so I'm looking forward to the next. Tragically the author died from a heart attack in 2004, aged 50

Mandy said...

Oh! I actually know about him then... it is all ringing bells. I must definitely add this to my to-read list.

soubriquet said...

I enjoyed it too, didn't know the author had died, sad...