The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsen

This book is the first of a trilogy involving the two central characters Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander.

There is an old mystery surrounding the disappearance of Swedish heiress Harriet Vanger, forty years ago.

Mikael Blomkvist, a troubled journalist, is hired by Harriet's elderly uncle to re-investigate Harriet's disappearance. Blomkvist is aided by a tattooed, punk rocking, computer prodigy by the name of Lisbeth Salander. As they investigate they find out there is much more than meets the eye in terms of what really happened to Harriet.

This was first published in Europe in 2005 and became an instant best seller. The regrettable thing about all of this is Stieg Larsson never lived to see his work published. He died of a heart attack right after he delivered the manuscripts for this title and 2 sequels, to his publisher.

The plot line is fast paced and the mystery really "keeps you guessing". The sequel "The Girl Who Played With Fire" is also available and is equally entertaining. It's just too bad that we will only have 3 books from an author that obviously had a lot of talent.