Deana
read and liked
Stephen Winkler's
review of
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1):
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The first problem I had was in pacing: the first half of the book was...more
I'm not a mystery guy, but picked this up after hearing good things at my Books on the Nightstand group. As you can see by the 2 stars, I thought it was "OK".
The first problem I had was in pacing: the first half of the book was pretty much devoted to history and character set-up and didn't really get into the mystery.
Once "the big break" happened, the mystery unraveled at a good clip and was pretty interesting, though it borrowed heavily from every occult thriller movie that I've seen (Angel Heart, Fallen, even Golden Child).
Another problem I had was that the issue of Swedish Nazism set up in the book never actually came into play, despite the author presenting that as a fairly strong family trait. Tying the crime into that aspect of family and Swedish history would have actually made the novel more original and interesting.
The thing that left me ultimately unfulfilled with the story was that the main character, Mikael, did not need to be (in a literary sense) the one who solved this mystery. It was not his character's destiny. His involvement with this case did not change him (he's still a happy-go-lucky playboy out to keep the financial world honest), nor did it (directly) solve the initial conflict he faced at the beginning of the novel. So, with no character nor conflict advancement tied in to his involvement, there was no sense of having taken a complete journey. The author could have cut out the first and last thirds of this novel and the same result would have been achieved.
I thought Lisbeth (the "girl with the dragon tattoo") HAD to be part of this case, given her history. Mikael did not.
Maybe I'm missing something; maybe I'm just not a mystery guy. But this just wasn't all there, for me. (less)
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