Here's your typical mystery/crime/detective novel. How engaging it is probably depends on how curious you are by nature. As I read through the 600+ pages in two days (not weekend), may be I can be called a tad curious. The plot goes like this - a young girl, Harriet Vanger, disappeared 40 years ago (yes, 40 years!) without a trace and a concerned relative hires a journalist, Blomkvist, to figure out what happened (but, why a journalist?). Then starts the long search.
There is also the journalist's personal story, trying to redeem his lost image and avenge the people responsible for damaging it. By the way, Blomkvist is not the girl with the dragon tattoo. The girl with the dragon tattoo appears too, but it's Blomkvist who rules the show.
There are also lots of stories of romance, failed marriages, unhappy kids and the many vices of the Vanger clan. While the mystery keeps you going, the multiple plots make the book too long. There are whole pages you can skip - the Vanger family's history going back to the 1600's and all those names and locales which eventually start interfering with your mind trying to solve the mystery. It's only the middle 300 or so pages which really keep you hooked.
But but ... the end is unsatisfactory! Both in terms of how the case is solved as well as how long the other plots take to end! And even after that, Larsson leaves one of them open-ended. No doubt to take it up in his following books.
If the book were shorter by about 200 pages (atleast!), it could have been a good quick-read. If the second book in the Millennium trilogy is as long, I don't think I will be reading it anytime soon.
