Cannonball Read III: Book #27/52Published: 2005
Pages: 480 (11,865 total so far)
Genre: Thriller/Crime
This is probably one of the best crime-solving books I've read since Silence of the Lambs. I normally don't go for the crime genre, but this book has gotten such good reviews that I decided to give it a try.
I actually almost gave up after the first couple of chapters due to the dull corporate investigative journalism storyline going on. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why people seemed to love this book. I decided to give it a few more chapters and all of a sudden, I couldn't put it down.
Finally, the real story starts as Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander start investigating the mysterious disappearance of Harriet Vanger more than 30 years ago. Mikael is a journalist who was just successfully sued for libel and pretty much lost all credibility when he gets a strange offer from an elderly, wealthy man named Henrik Vanger. Harriet was Henrik's niece and he wants Mikael to spend the next year working on solving her disappearance (or murder, as Henrik believes).
Eventually, computer hacker/private investigator Lisbeth joins him on the case. Lisbeth is an interesting character. She's definitely got some sort of sordid past that is merely alluded to, but she's tough and good at her job. She was probably more of a minor character than I expected (especially considering the book is pretty much named after her) and I would have liked to see more of her.
I'm really glad I stuck with the book. I had no idea where the story was going to go and was definitely thrown for some loops. This book really stood well on it's own, so I'm not sure yet if I'll pick up the other two books in the series.
I've read the entire series and highly recommend you read the other too books, as well.
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