Books

Watch your language

Three riveting foreign books are finally available in English.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo By Stieg Larsson; translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland; Knopf, $24.95; out Sept 19

SYNOPSIS
The American title of Stieg Larsson’s Swedish thriller makes it sound something like Tomb Raider. But Larsson, who died in 2004, was a lefty with a conscience, and this first volume in his “Millennium Trilogy” is actually a forceful indictment of the violence that half of society perpetrates on the other half: The original title translates as “Men Who Hate Women.”

Lest you think we’re recommending a political tract, know that Larsson’s novel (his U.S. debut) could serve as the definition of page-turner. After losing a libel suit against one of his targets, discredited financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist quits his job at investigative magazine Millennium and accepts a lucrative assignment: tracking down a woman who went AWOL 36 years ago. Teaming up with a charismatic, asocial hacker named Lisbeth Salander (the titular inked girl), Blomkvist discovers the bloody truth behind one of the most powerful families in Sweden; as if this weren’t enough, Larsson adds a parallel plot involving financial corruption. The two leads are compellingly complex and always wrestle with the boundaries of right and wrong, propelling the novel well past standard thriller goalposts. The worst part: We have to wait until summer ’09 for the second installment.

BACKSTORY
The “Millennium Trilogy” is the Rent of contemporary lit: Larsson delivered the manuscripts for all three books to his publisher just months before dying of a heart attack. There are now almost 8 million copies of the trilogy in print, and one out of every three Swedes owns a “Millennium” book. Because they weren’t married, Larsson’s partner of 32 years, Eva Gabrielsson, was shut out of the considerable royalties, which have gone to blood relatives. She and the family have been embroiled in very public feud, as well as a fight over Larsson’s computer, which is said to contain volume four. In a further wrinkle, this past May, a 1977 will was discovered, in which Larsson bequeathed his (then-nonexistent) monies to an obscure Communist group in northern Sweden. The will was invalidated, but it’s clear that his legacy is as tumultuous as anything he could have dreamed up.

— Elisabeth Vincentelli

EXCERPT

His contempt for his fellow financial journalists was based on something that in his opinion was as plain as morality. The equation was simple. A bank director who blows millions on foolhardy speculations should not keep his job. A managing director who plays shell company games should do time. A slum landlord who forces young people to pay through the nose and under the table for a one- room apartment with shared toilet should be hung out to dry. The job of the financial journalist was to examine the sharks who created interest crises and speculated away the savings of small investors, to scrutinise company boards with the same merciless zeal with which political reporters pursue the tiniest steps out of line of ministers and members of Parliament. He could not for the life of him understand why so many influential financial reporters treated mediocre financial whelps like rock stars. These recalcitrant views had time after time brought him into conflict with his peers. Borg, for one, was going to be an enemy for life. His taking on a role of social critic had actually transformed him into a prickly guest on TV sofas— he was always the one invited to comment whenever any CEO was caught with a golden parachute worth billions. Mikael had no trouble imagining that champagne bottles had been uncorked in some newspapers’ back rooms that evening.

Excerpted from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson Copyright © 2008 by Stieg Larsson. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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