Stieg Larsson & The Millenium Trilogy

They drink a lot of coffee in Sweden. Or at least that is the impression one is left with after reading the novels that make up the so-called 'Millenium Trilogy' by Stieg Larsson: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", "The Girl Who played with Fire", and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest." These books, translated from the Swedish, have been runaway bestsellers and a worldwide publishing phenomenon. The third book in the series was released in May 2010 and together with the first two trace the story of Lisabeth Salander (the 'Girl'), who is, to put it mildly, a somewhat unique heroine in contemporary fiction: she is antisocial, covered with tattoos, an extremely talented computer hacker, bisexual, slight of physical stature, but a skilled boxer, and with her own sense of morality. However, the underlying theme is her fight against the establishment that victimized her early in life under the pretext of national security. Playing the male protagonist is Mikael Blomkvist, a slightly left leaning investigative journalist. He is also the co-founder of the magazine "Millenium" from which the trilogy takes its name. Mikael's character is not quite as complex as Salander's, but is nonetheless multifaceted and far from being flat.
The first book ("Dragon Tattoo") finds Blomkvist trying to solve a decades old missing person mystery that he eventually does with the assistance of Salander. The next two books focus more on Salander and the gradual unraveling of the conspiracy against her.
The stories are well plotted and despite their length (they average over 550 pages each) the reader's interest rarely flags. Most books of this genre resort to a cheap manipulation of the reader: manufacturing cliff hangers merely by switching the context. Larsson does none of this and I found that I really enjoyed reaching the end of a chapter with some kind of crisis situation and then have the scene continue at the start of the next chapter.
The real life back story to this trilogy is almost as interesting as the books themselves. The Blomkvist character is clearly meant to be a stand-in for Larsson himself (Larsson was a left leaning journalist who started and ran Expo, a magazine similar to Millenium) and some friends of Larsson have even suggested that parts of the Salander character may also be inspired by the author's own self. All three books were published posthumously: Larsson died in 2004 from a heart attack and the manuscripts for the books were discovered after his death. There is speculation that he never intended the books for publication and that he wrote them simply for his own pleasure. This in itself make these books intriguing as examples of works that were unaffected by commercial considerations or by the supervision of an editor. Incidentally, these are the only three fiction books published by Larsson. Supposedly he left behind some more incomplete manuscripts and outlines, but much of that is the subject of much wrangling between his heirs and long time girlfriend. A side effect of the success of these books has been a renewed interest in foreign authors - publishers have been scouring the best seller lists of countries around the world in a bid to find the next Stieg Larsson.
As mentioned earlier, a lot of coffee is drunk by the characters in these books (it is a wonder any of them are able to sleep at all). There is also lots of detail about towns in Sweden and in particular lots of mention of place names and road names, most of which I could not pronounce. After a while, one tends to glaze over these names, but as might be expected you don't really lose much by doing so. Despite the translation, a sense of the place and people does come through - the echoes from the Wallander books or even Smilla's Sense of Snow are faintly evident.
All three books have been made into movies in Sweden and they have all received strong reviews. The first one has already has already made it to the US (in fact playing in San Diego now) and others should follow. Overall, an entertaining set of books that comes with a glimpse into a slice of Swedish society and life.