If you glance up from this newspaper, there’s a good chance you’ll spot someone staring into the pages of a Stieg Larsson novel. The Swedish author, who died in 2004, penned the wildly popular Millennium Trilogy, whose first two books, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” have sold almost four million copies in the U.S. and more than 20 million worldwide. Today, the third and final chapter, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” hits American shelves with an initial print run of about 800,000.
The Millenium Trilogy centers around Mikael Blomkvist, a reporter who edits a business magazine (Larsson himself was a journalist) and Lisbeth Salander, a damaged computer hacker whose iron will belies her pixie-ish appearance. Such a summary hardly does justice to the books’ twisty plots, which encompass family intrigue, corporate malfeasance and the relentless theme of misogyny.
Salander’s punky resilience has helped her become Larsson’s signature creation and she’s forged a strong bond with readers. “She’s become a character in the public consciousness,” says Paul Bogaards, the executive director of publicity at Knopf, which publishes the books in the U.S. “I can’t recall a protagonist quite like her.”
Georgia Shutzer, a Brooklynite fan who, like many diehards, ordered the third book in advance from the U.K., echoed that sentiment. “She’s one of the most complex characters I’ve ever read,” she said. “I reached a point where the plot was secondary to just knowing her better.”
To capitalize on such devotion, Knopf has launched promotions that include temporary tattoos and a Lisbeth Salander lookalike contest. Not that the publisher needs much help attracting new readers; John Turner, a buyer at McNally Jackson bookstore in NoLita, describes the demand for the first two books as “never-ending” and not limited to a particular demographic. That genre-defying character points to the book’s utterly addictive quality, which defines any true page-turner. In the end, above all the memorable characters and dense plotting, one simple fact remains: as Turner puts it, “You want to know what happens next.”
