The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Lisbeth Salander gets under the skin of her targets like no-one else. Those who underestimate her live to regret it.

If they're lucky ...

Mikael Blomkvist - disgraced journalist, womanizer - is everything she ought to hate. But when she is hired by a security firm to investigate him, her report on his life reveals an integrity that fascinates her. Then she discovers that Blomkvist is cracking open the cold case of a missing girl - uncovering secrets that have poisoned a family through generations.

And only one thing gives Salander greater satisfaction than exposing a liar: stopping a killer.

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate.

When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

With an introduction by Val McDermid.