The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Well, call me "everyone and their grandmother," because I just read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Or, as the original Swedish title translates to, "Men Who Hate Women." I mention the original title because I think it actually tells you something about the book and what it's about. Yes, one character in the novel is a girl with a dragon tattoo, but using that as the English title for the book just seems like a marketing ploy because it gives the cover some kind of edgy vibe or an exotic mystique at the very least. Men Who Hate Women isn't a sexy title, but at least its an honest one. So out of respect for the late Stieg Larsson and for the book itself, I'll try to refer to this book with the title he bestowed upon it in the first place: Men Who Hate Women. Men Who Hate Women is a novel about - no, not a dragon tattoo, but about a murder mystery involving a serial killer who rapes and brutally tortures women. (Who'd have thunk it?) I'd hesitate to call it a page-turner, but it was interesting and entertaining enough for me to finish its 460 pages over the course of three nights. It was a good read. That said, I'm not so sure why this book became an international best-seller or why it's already on its second movie adaptation trilogy in three years. Like so many other books, this was a murder mystery. That it takes place in Sweden and includes one quirky and interesting character is enough to set it apart from most Stuart Woods books, sure, but at the end of the day what you have is a well-written but not-so-unique story about the case of a missing person and a string of biblical-style rapes and killings. Please don't misunderstand me; I liked the book and fully intend to read the next two in the trilogy, and I'll probably see the movie adaptation within the next week or so. But if there had been no hype preceding this novel for me - if I had just happened upon Men Who Hate Women at Hudson News in the airport and taken a blind chance on it - I wouldn't have figured it to be an international best-selling super hit at all. A good read with a memorable character, yes, but not the biggest literary hit among adults since The Da Vinci Code. (That said, this book was a lot better than The Da Vinci Code.) I want to be proven wrong about Men Who Hate Women not really "mattering" to the Western canon in any way, and I want this Millennium Trilogy to end up being more than just three very popular murder mysteries. Of course, even if the next two books don't combine with this one to become something more than three well-written murder mysteries, I'll still get to enjoy reading two more decent murder mysteries. Things could be worse!