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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  By  cover art

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By: Stieg Larsson,Reg Keeland - translator
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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Publisher's summary

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The thrilling first book in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series featuring Lisbeth Salander: “Combine the chilly Swedish backdrop and moody psychodrama of a Bergman movie with the grisly pyrotechnics of a serial-killer thriller, then add an angry punk heroine and a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist, and you have the ingredients of Stieg Larsson’s first novel” (The New York Times). • Also known as the Millennium series

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

Look for the latest book in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, The Girl in the Eagle's Talons, coming soon!

Listen to the rest of The Millennium Trilogy.
©2008 Stieg Larsson (P)2008 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European best seller...At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden's dirty not-so-little secrets, this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple." (Publishers Weekly)

"Combine the chilly Swedish backdrop and moody psychodrama of a Bergman movie with the grisly pyrotechnics of a serial-killer thriller, then add an angry punk heroine and a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist, and you have the ingredients of Stieg Larsson's first novel." (The New York Times)

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a striking novel. Just when I was thinking there wasn't anything new on the horizon, along comes Stieg Larsson with this wonderfully unique story. I was completely absorbed." (Michael Connelly)

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What listeners say about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    28,758
  • 4 Stars
    9,095
  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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Performance
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  • 3 Stars
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A Classic Mystery with Wonderful Characters

This is a complex and beautifully narrated mystery that is unique in quality of story and characterization. This is the first book of the Millenium Trilogy by the late author Stieg Larsson. This novel has won a number of awards and the trilogy has been compared to War and Peace for its epic scope and depth of characterization. It is a bit hard to keep track of the Swedish characters, so here is a list of them which the listener might wish to print out for reference. This list is carefully constructed to avoid giving any elements of the mystery away.

Mikael Blomkvist, journalist, publisher of Millennium magazine, and amateur sleuth.

Lisbeth Salander, antisocial but highly talented computer hacker (the girl with the dragon tattoo),

Henrik Vanger, aged CEO of Vanger Corporation.

Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, corrupt Swedish industrialist and Blomkvist's nemesis.

Harriet Vanger, great-niece of Henrik.

Martin Vanger, brother of Harriet and President of the Vanger Corporation.

Nils Bjurman, the lawyer to whom Lisbeth's must report because she is an emancipated minor,

Cecilia Vanger, Harald's banished daughter.

There are many other characters of importance, but keeping track of these is critical to enjoying the book. And if one is not used to Swedish names, keeping track is not trivial. However, rest assured the exercise is worth it. This is a mystery of such high quality that the listener will quickly be pulled into the story and find it nearly impossible to stop listening. When it is over, you will go into a brief depression because the characters become part of you, and their interesting behavior is so well described that it becomes a persistent and compelling memory.

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341 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Another serial killer torturing women.

With all the graphic details of imprisonment, torture and slow murder over and over. I try hard to avoid these books, but the description of this book didn't hint at what the book was really about. So now you know, just in case your care.

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227 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointed

After all that media hype, I must say, I was rather underwhelmed by this book. I was hoping that Stieg Larsson adds another hue to the Scandinavian crime writing genre. But no, he's as pointlessly brutal as his fellow Swedish writers Henning Mankell or Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo. He just reinforces the notion that rape, sadism, incest and every other (un)imaginable vicious excess are popular Scandinavian pastimes.

But the most disappointing here is Simon Vance's reading. His awful mimicking of the female voices is beyond the pale - as if he wanted to ruin even the better parts of this book. It's such a pity, especially since he has invested so much effort in a fine, authentic and most charming pronunciation of all the Swedish names and words.

I'm awfully sorry to be so harsh about him, because I'm one of his greatest admirers; I have even bought several audiobooks simply because I like Simon's voice and his reading.


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103 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

One of the best

Occasionally, a book comes along that requires constant listening. The story is great, the characters believable and Simon Vance is a very good reader. First of a trilogy, I can't wait for the next. A visit to the author's website is well worthwhile.

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86 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN

I digested this book slowly over a number of weeks; I couldn't put it down, but I didn't want the story to end. This was one of the most interesting, original, imaginative works of fiction I have read in years. Before I was finished I had order my own "to keep" copy of the hardback. Yes, the author delved into the dark side of life, but that dark side of the characters was necessary to drive the plot. I would recommend this book to anyone who can keep an open mind, enjoys great character development and appreciates a realistic ending.

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69 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

great for two chapters, then not so much

My mom recommended this audio book to me when she was a couple chapters in, and, yes the beginning is great. The middle, however descends into endless descriptions of sexual torture and computer systems details. The denoumout (sp?) takes up a full third of the book, and end the end I really felt I couldn't care less about tying up all the loose ends. I read and listen to a wide range of mysteries, including other Swedish authors, and am surprised to find this book so well reviewed.

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67 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Getting Ready for Book 4

Although I generally eschew best sellers, I'll admit that I read the Millennium Trilogy not long after the books were published in English and loved them. With the amazing character of Lisbeth Salander and the dark and twisty plots, these books are hard to put down once you pick them up. And since they are long books, reading Stieg Larsson means you have to hide out from family and friends for days at a time which is something my life just doesn't allow too often. But when I heard that a fourth book in the series will be published in August of this year, I knew I wanted to re-read the trilogy first. So, I decided to buy the audiobooks and re-visit my friend with the dragon tattoo in a way that doesn't make me give up the rest of my life.

I can't add much to the many reviews of the books this late in the game, so I will just review the audio experience for anyone like me who has read the books and wondered if it was worth 3 credits to buy the audiobooks. IMHO - YES! If you haven't read the books in at least 2 - 3 years, you probably won't remember a lot of the details even though you might remember the basic plot lines so the story still felt fresh and surprising to me the second time around. And, if you are going to spend 55+ hours listening to a narrator, you want the best and you will get it. Simon Vance is tough to beat - I loved every minute of listening to him. He gives each character a unique and believable voice and maintains the narrative flow perfectly through these long suspenseful stories.

Swedish author, David Lagercrantz, is writing the fourth book in the franchise and although he will be using the established characters, he will not be working from Larsson's notes. It's hard to believe that the fourth book will be as good, but I am sure I will read it and just hope another writer can capture some of the magic that Larsson put into the original three.

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64 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Absorbing

When I first began,I was not sure I would like this book. The initial part of it is essential though a bit slow. Afterward, I was completely absorbed and entertained. Don't pass on this one. The ratings are completely justified.

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59 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Very Well Written

I couldn't stop listening to this book - I had to finish it. It's not edge of your seat kind of thriller - it's more of a suspenseful thinking kind of thriller - if that makes sense at all. It has enough twists to make your head spin and it was kind of confusing at the start since there were so many characters involved, but it was very well written and the characters' lives and the way they cross paths is just very good story telling. The narrator was very good, too.

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58 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Only inadvertently funny, it is offensive rubbish

Don't waste your time and money. Unceasing genderism throughout like, by the time she was 18 she didn't know a single girl who had not been forced to a sex act against her will. Wow, not one, huh? Glad to know the author isn't perpetuating this mass victimology fantasizing that grows to the degree of delusion we have going on. Of course the very few "good guys" are emasculated externally and internally,unlike the women, of course. Author explains how her trustee has the power to make her his rape-slave. Even explains this nanny state trustee practice as if not rare... yet apparently our "intellectual" author is too unintelligent to conclude the nanny state itself is the root of the situation created. Tired, old anti-establishment crap like, walking to work a cop without any provocation strikes her and runs off when she raises her formatable Coke bottle to counterattack. Apparently a demonstration so far away as to not be seen was going on -but you know those constantly violent cops. A bit about how finacial journalists were pushing the company party lines instead of being objective and using some critical thinking, like crime or political journalists do -I haven't had a laugh like that from an audiobook in a while. Not a bad narration voice but the book itself is rubbish.

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52 people found this helpful