Stiege Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Summary
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's Prologue features an unnamed man (who we soon learn is Henrik Vanger) getting a framed, pressed Australian flower in the mail on his birthday, November 1st. He calls Detective Superintendant Morrell and tells him about the flower. Henrik gets one of these flowers every year on his birthday. He has a total of 44 now. Buthe and the detective can't solve the mystery of who exactly keeps sending them. This thought makes Henrik cry.

After the Prologue, a copy of the Vanger family tree is provided for the readers. The rest of the novel is divided into four parts plus an Epilogue. It moves from December 20, 2002 to December 30, 2003.
Incentive
Welcome to Stockholm, Sweden. It's a Friday in late December 2002. Andit's cold.

Meet 42-year-old Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist, and managing editor of Millennium magazine, devoted to exposing financial corruption. Blomkvist has just been convicted of publishing libelous material about financier Hans-Erik Wennerström and has been sentenced to a hefty fine and three months in prison, which he'll serve some time in 2003.

Next we meet 24-year-oldLisbeth Salander, private investigator extraordinaire, and her boss at Milton Security, Dragan Armansky. Armansky and Salander are meeting with Dirch Frode, who hired Milton to investigate Mikael Blomkvist. Salander tells Frode that Blomkvist doesn't seem to be corrupt. He's a good journalist. But she still thinks Wennerström is crooked and that Blomkvist was set up. She agrees to investigateWennerström for Frode. She tells Frode that Blomkvist is divorced with a teen daughter, and that he has a longtime sexual relationship with Erika Berger, editor-in-chief of Millennium. Erika is married but her husband, artist Greger Beckman, doesn't mind her relationship with Blomkvist. In all, Salander paints Blomkvist in a positive light.

Blomkvist and Berger meet at the Millennium offices, andBlomkvist convinces Berger to temporarily fire him, so his conviction will have less of a chance of hurting the magazine. Berger reluctantly agrees. Now that that decision's out of the way, Berger and Blomkvist spend the weekend together making love.

On Monday, Blomkvist goes over to Millennium, which is closed for the holidays. While he's there, he gets a call from Dirch Frode who says he representsHenrik Vanger, patriarch of the Vangers, a wealthy industrial family that owns the Vanger Corporation. The current CEO of the Vanger Corporation is Martin Vanger. Frode says Henrik wants to hire Blomkvist for something, but he can't say what. Henrik wants Blomkvist to come meet up on remote Hedeby Island because he's too old to travel.

On Christmas Eve, Salander takes presents to her 46-year-oldmother in a nursing home. Salander and her mother briefly discuss the fact that neither of them have seen Salander's sister, Camilla, in a long time. Before Salander leaves, her mother mistakes Salander for her sister Camilla.

Blomkvist visits his ex-wife and his daughter, Pernilla, on Christmas Eve and then goes to his sister's place. At his sister's, he decides to accept Frode's offer andagrees to go to Hedeby Island. The day after Christmas he goes to Hedeby and meets Henrik Vanger.

Meanwhile, Salander goes to Hans-Erik Wennerström's apartment building. She checks out the electrical room and finds the wiring to Wennerström's apartment. Next, she visits her hacker friend Plague and buys an electronic cuff from him. (The cuff is a hacking device; Salander explains how she uses itin Chapter 28. It's implied, at this point, that Salander uses the cuff to do something to the wiring in Hans-Erik Wennerström's apartment.)

Back to Hedeby Island, Blomkvist learns that Henrik's great-niece, Harriet Vanger, disappeared 36 years ago. She started giving him pressed flowers when she was eight. After her disappearance, Henrik continued getting flowers in the mail. He's convinced...