After losing a libel case, Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist in Sweden, is offered an escape from his troubles in Stockholm and agrees to spend a year writing the history of a wealthy Swedish family. This is the start of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a captivating mystery by Stieg Larson, a well-known Swedish magazine editor who died shortly after submitting the manuscript of this novel and two others meant to form a trilogy.

As Blomkvist delves into the history of the Vanger family, he becomes obsessed with the patriarch’s quest to solve a painful mystery — the disappearance of 16-year-old Harriet Vanger from a family gathering in 1966. Blomkvist, a loner, eventually hires a researcher, Lisbeth Salander, to help him with his project. Salander is a 24-year-old computer hacker and certified genius with a dragon tattoo. She’s a borderline psychopath with no regard for the law or accepted social standards of behaviour. As Blomkvist and Salander unravel clues and uncover years of deception, they learn the Vanger family harbours unimaginably dark secrets.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an enthralling mystery. The climax is so unexpected I had to reread sections to see if I had missed any clues. The complicated financial details do slow the action, however, as do the descriptions of Blomkvist’s complicated personal life.

Salander is an enigmatic and unforgettable character. Larson teases us with snippets of her past and draws a portrait of her through her interactions with the other characters. It leaves the reader wanting more. Blomkvist is the perfect foil for her — serious, methodical and bound to the highest ethical standards.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is translated from Swedish and at 465 pages is a long read. While the translation is flat at times, with some awkward phrasing and word selections, the story is riveting, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next instalment in the trilogy.