This past weekend, I read Stieg Larsson’s huge bestselling Swedish mystery The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Despite some periodic anti-business elements, I really liked it. The mystery — or rather, interlocking set of mysteries — were very well-constructed. The main characters, although very different in personality and life-situation, were engaging and enjoyable. It definitely wasn’t deep, but the novel was good popular fiction, perhaps the best I’ve ever read. (However, I’m not the best judge, as I don’t read much popular fiction. I vastly prefer the classics.)

The second novel in the trilogy is The Girl Who Played with Fire. That’s available now, and I’m eager to read it. I think I’ll wait until February or March though — if I can. The third novel, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, is due out in late May. So I’d like to space them out a bit.

Notably, I didn’t read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo myself: I listened to the unabridged audiobook read well by Simon Vance. That’s how I’ll read the others. If you like audiobooks, I definitely recommend those versions. You can get them for relatively cheap via a subscription to Audible.com; that’s what I use for all my audiobooks. (Disclosure Coerced by the FTC: I get a commission if you subscribe via that link.)

Unfortunately, Stieg Larsson died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2004, so we won’t be enjoying any more novels from him. However, it looks like movies are coming.