The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Friday Book Discussion

As I began to read TGWTDT, I had the strangest sensation that I had already read it and was quite disappointed that I had purchased it rather than borrowing it from the library. The descriptions evoked a picture in my head that I had seen before. Waste of money, not to mention I had started a doomed book club based on a book I've already read.

Then I realized I was wrong. The opening pages only reminded me of this other book called Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser. Nesser is a Swede like Stieg Larsson and both books are mysteries. Seems like a thin connection. While I was searching for the memory of Borkmann's Point...aided by the handy internet, I found that there is this thing called the Nordic Mystery Boom. I am pretty excited about it because, to be sure, my first love in literature is the mystery: since Harriet The Spy, through Hounds of the Baskerville, to my first grown up novel The Bourne Identity, all of Agatha Christie and on to my serendipitous discovery of PD James (the Julia Childs of mysteries). So devoted am I to the mystery novel and all its manifestations that I once embarked on a summer of James Patterson. Actually his first novels were good but I persisted in reading them all, until I finally had to throw a paperback into the pool in disgust at his ridiculous attempts at penning the voice of a woman: "You go girl!" Gag.

I was still wondering what it is about these two Swedish writers whose similarity made me mistake one for the other. A review of the purported Nordic Mystery Boom in an 2008 LA Times article came up with a word that concisely captures the reason for my déjà vu vibe. The reviewer called the lot of them "glum". You, Joe Queenan, are correct. They are glum and therein lies that uncanny similarity I think. There is something about the glumness that I really like. Any thoughts?

BTW, Jessica, you will be happy to know that the original Swedish title to TGWTDT was "Män som hatar kvinnor" - "Men That Hate Women". If you can take comfort in the veracity of a Wikisource then you will be pleased with this less cheesy title I think.