Mike Dougherty's Blog

Crackling excitement in finding great book; Larsson’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” has much promise

I’m not far along on Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” … Chapter 6 or something like that.

Though I had seen the book mentioned on a few websites, somehow I had managed to miss it until a couple of weeks ago. Nancy and I recently bought “Dragon Tattoo” and Jonathan Kellerman’s “Deception,” which looks at the darker side of prep schools and the college application process. I finished the latter first and now I’ve ventured into the first of Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy.

Sometimes a book can start off strong and then fizzle, but so far, I understand what all the excitement is about —Larsson’s storytelling crackles with anticipation. Let’s face it, readers. When we find what we believe will be a new author we’re going to like, we get excited. So far, this story reads like a winner. There mystery, great characters (a crusading journalist and an exotic investigator) and a genuine desire to keep reading to find out what happens next.

There is a wistfulness in this case, though, once you realize that Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 50 just before the aforementioned first book was published. It’s sad because he didn’t live to enjoy his success. But selfishly we lament the fact that we lost what may have been the wonder of the six additional books he planned in his story outline.