The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By: Stieg Larsson

Narrated by: Saul Reichlin

Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family.

He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from 40 years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history.

But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

©2005, 2008 Norstedts Agency, Reg Keeland (P)2009 WF Howes Ltd

Critic reviews

"I doubt you will read a better book this year." (Val McDermid)

"Intelligent, complex, with a gripping plot and deeply intriguing characters. The author's early death is a great loss." (Philip Pullman)

"What a cracking novel! I haven't read such a stunning thriller debut for years. Brilliantly written and totally gripping." (Minette Walters)

excellent read

This book is an excellent reading experience. The story is a good page turner and a great companion read

A beautiful package

If you could sum up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in three words, what would they be?

Story well delivered

What did you like best about this story?

The intrigues, Plots and narration.

Any additional comments?

This is my first Stieg Larsson and was most enjoyable. The narration was beautiful and presents the characters in a dramatic manner. A very successful work worth every minute I devoted to it in traffic.

Excellent narration

I needn't speak to the popularity of the book. I was glad to see that Saul Reichlin also did the audio recordings for the two sequals.

Excellent

Very good book however having watched the movie before listening to the book i noticed it was very very very very very detailed so it felt like there was alot of unimportant information

Both the story and the performance were masterful!

What did you love best about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It was a bit tricky to get through the first hour, purely due to the large number of Swedish names and places that have to be remembered. After that, the book explodes into a nailbiter. Actually. It's an incredible murder-mystery with exceptional character development. Plot-twist upon plot-twist. Couldn't put it down.

What about Saul Reichlin’s performance did you like?

Saul Reichlin was a master in this performance. He skillfully handled tricky pronunciations, and performed character voices perfectly without exaggeration. In the future, I'll buy books purely on the basis that they were narrated by Reichlin.

Any additional comments?

Very graphic in some parts, certainly R16. I'm sad that my son won't be able to read it for a few years. On the other hand, I'M going to have to buy the other two books. :)

Very sad that Stieg Larsson died before finishing the books. The Wikipedia entry on Larsson is incredible in its reflection of his real-life career as an investigative journalist.

Definitely Recommended

This book has been on my list for years, but only felt the urge to read it recently. It was mentioned in many books and series that I thought it must be very good, and so it was.
I didn't like the narrator's accent at first but I grew to even like it after a while.

Great story.

Would you listen to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo again? Why?

This is a really good story and, although slow in parts, is very easy to listen to. It is beautifully read and it's nice to read (listen?) about a country not normally the setting in popular fiction.

Ho hum, somewhat tedious

For some reason, this book was highly recommended to me but I found the story tedious, the characters hollow and the unfolding story unsatisfying. Most frustrating was my expectation that the book would actually be about 'the girl with the dragon tattoo', but her story is presented like an aside to the main narrative which is pretty much all about pompous men & their money (yawn). To add insult to injury, the girl's story, which has the potential to be really mysterious and interesting, is left undeveloped. Perhaps her story is further developed in the 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest' and 'The Girl Who Played with Fire', but I won't be reading them to find out. This unnecessary detail-heavy style of writing is just not for me.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Based on the reviews that I read I was looking forward to this book and whilst it was enjoyable enough I felt at the end that the whole thing was just slightly off key, and I won't be listening to it again. I did not feel that any of the characters really achieved their potential under the writer's hand although they came closest in the Lisbet character. The 'baddies' were just too bad, too black and white and I felt too, that the violence, grotesque as it was, was perhaps just a tad calculated to shock the reader.
Perhaps Larsson's style lost something in the translation, but I found that the language was pretty wooden as if he was just churning through and trying to get the story told without much consideration for style. The narrator was just fine and I would be happy to listen to him again, but not in a Larsson novel...

Much better than it initially seems

A couple of hours into this book, I would have given it 1 star, and wondered if I could actually be bothered trying to finish it. The central character hadn't even been introduced, and the main premise of the novel hadn't even started. I certainly wouldn't have considered going on to the other 2 equally long installments in the trilogy. However, the detailed description of the Swedish setting of the story was interesting, so I persisted.

The book does become more engaging, the characters are introduced and developed, and it even becomes quite fast-paced in places, with some rather unexpected plot turns.

So, this is a worthwhile listening experience if you're willing to immerse yourself in it, and be carried along at its pace, be that fast or slow. I think I'll try at least the second novel as well, as I'm now interested to see what becomes of Lisbeth. She is an interesting character, although I must admit I found Larsson's portrayal of her as a 'super-hacker' to be fairly unconvincing in this book.

My biggest criticism is that the book is far too long. I think that when this book was submitted to the publishers, they should have sent it back with the comment "this has great possibilities, now cut it in half". The book would have benefited greatly from this. I really think a lot of the Venestrom affair could have been severely curtailed with only good effects on the main story.

On a positive note, I must complement Saul Reichlin on his performance of the work. He is a great narrator and very easy to listen to for such a long story.