The Strange Ms Salander

LisbethSalander is clearly not one of your likeable, marketable girls-next-door —the sort of character that's made for Cameron Diaz or Reese Witherspoon.Instead, she is an antisocial punk with a major image problem. The Swedishgovernment considers her "mentally incompetent". The media believes that she isa psycho Lesbian Satanist. Her acquaintances describe her as "the girl with twobrain cells". And even ardent supporters admit that she is "very lonely andodd".Nevertheless, when this unprepossessing detective rode into ourlives atop her Kawasaki in 2005 — nine tattoos, pierced tongue,photographic memory and all — she made an unexpected impact in theoverpopulated world of crime fiction. Within months The Girl with the DragonTattoo had kicked and hacked her way onto the bestseller lists. And the chunkymystery book set in Sweden soon attracted awards and attention.Thiswas only the beginning of the Millennium phenomenon. For the three books writtenby Stieg Larsson — The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Playedwith Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest — have now sold 27million copies. These tomes have inspired a movie that was released last month,as well as a Stockholm tour that takes fans to the apartments, offices andrestaurants in the books. The energetic prose and thought-provoking plots havehooked readers as diverse as actor Shah Rukh Khan and crime writer Val McDermid.In fact, Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa wrote that he devoured this taleof "just avengers" with the same feverish excitement that he felt as a boyreading Dickens and Hugo, "wondering as I turned each page 'And now what isgoing to happen next?'"Indeed, it is apparent by page 20 of The Girlwith the Dragon Tattoo that this is an accomplished page-turner with bestsellerpotential. But it is only after digesting all 2,100 pages of the trilogy thatone starts to understand why these books are acquiring epic status, and evenensnaring readers who have no idea how to pronounce Sodertalje on to findHedestad on a map. (And achieving all this without the usual hoopla of publicitytours and book-signing sessions. For Larsson died before a single one of hisblockbusters was published.)Many factors have contributed to theMillennium mystique. The sleety, cold streets of Stockholm are relativelyuncharted terrain. Larsson's writing is crisp but lively. His characters arecompletely original. And their sensibilities are uniquelyScandinavian.At the heart of this complex and sprawling trilogy is apair of memorable protagonists : Mikael Blomkvist is a committed investigativejournalist who works with Millennium magazine and is a bit of a babe-magnet. Inshort, he is that enviable being: a good man who has a good time. Moreexasperating and much less ordinary is Lisbeth Salander, a social misfit whoenjoys pondering over Fermat's Theorem, memorises pages of text in minutes andhacks her way into the most carefully guarded computers. McDermid describes thisskinny waif as a "kind of superwoman" who is "an emblem of all the bullied,abused, degraded and despised women that Larsson wanted to stand upfor".Indeed, while these crime novels tell a cracking story, theyalso reflect Larsson's concerns about the ugly realities that often exist behindSweden's prosperous, welfare façade. So the first book deals with bigbusiness and corruption; the second examines sex trafficking from impoverishedBaltic nations ; and the third addresses the secret police and its indifferenceto individual rights.At the beginning of Dragon Tattoo, Blomkvist'scareer has hit rock bottom and he has just served time in prison for a libellousarticle. He reluctantly agrees to write a book about a prominent industrialistfamily. But he soon finds that his actual assignment is to investigate themysterious disappearance of a 16-year-old girl almost four decades ago. He, inturn, ropes in Salander. And the stage is set for a good old-fashioned whodunit.Agatha Christie with a cherry on top.If the first book is a spin onthe cosy 'locked door' mystery, The Girl who Played with Fire is morecontemporary and akin to the works of Sara Paretsky. So when Stockholm isshocked by three grisly murders on a single night, and suspicion falls onSalander, a massive investigation and manhunt is launched. The startlingsolution is eventually found in the wider world of politics, organised crime andamidst the debris of the Cold War. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest readslike a political thriller and bustles with ruthless intelligence agents, corruptofficials and chilling conspiracies.The fact that the trilogy offersa smorgasbord of plots and genres keeps readers alert and curious. But thenStieg Larsson was a voracious reader of picklock-and-poison paperbacks and wrotethe Millennium trilogy at night for his own pleasure. The pioneering journalistand activist had closely observed the functioning of the police, theintelligence services and the media, which gave him marvellous insights anddetails.Larsson had planned a series of 10 thrillers, but only threegot written. Just a few months before Dragon Tattoo hit the stands, he suffereda massive heart attack and died. Of course, readers who enjoyed strolling downKungsgatan and sampling lamb stew at Samir's Cauldron are bound to mourn thebooks that were never written. But the fact that there can only ever be threeMillennium books probably makes their encounter with the strange Ms Salandereven more precious.