The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will suck you in from the first page - which of course starts with a decades old murder mystery. Mikael Blomkvist is hired to investigate the murder of Harriet Vanger, after his career takes a downward spiral after being convicted of libel. He is hired for one year to investigate exactly what happened the day Harriet disappeared and determine which member of the Vanger family killed her. In the course of his investigation, he hires the girl with the dragon tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, a world class hacker, as a research assistant. Lisbeth is a 24 year old who is still a guardian of the state and is perceived to have mental issues, despite the fact that she's a near genius when it comes to technology. But years of mistreatment by the state have made Lisbeth someone you do NOT mess with. I really enjoyed this story and couldn't put it down - I read it in one day. I wasn't too thrilled with the very end, but I just discovered that this is the first book in a trilogy, so hopefully the second one, The Girl Who Played with Fire, will pick up where this left off.