The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo is 2005 mystery-thriller written by Swedish writer Stieg Larrson. Originally published in Swedish, the book was translated and published in 2008. It's a classic whodunnit with multiple characters, and unique backstories. The main protagonists are Mikael Blomkovist, a socio-political journalist, and Lisbeth Salander, an anti-social investigator. The story revolves around finding the murderer of Harriet Vanger which evolves into a two decade long case of serial killings.
The main themes are oppression of women in a misogynist society, although the book covers a variety of topics including childhood abuse, failure of socio-political journalism, and human psyche. Lisbeth Salander comes as a protagonist contrastingly different from the regular heroine. She is anti-social, not beautiful in the traditional sense, has no regard for rules and can turn highly violent. Mikael is, in contrast, controlled, organized and takes place of the 'damsel in distress' in the end of book.
The plot follows a case of murders committed with a religious subtext and the book makes a strong point against the fact that someone other than the perpetrator is often blamed for the crime, either the victims or religion or upbringing. Lisbeth, at multiple times in the book, questions this. As she, herself, had an abusive and violent childhood, she doesn't believe that upbringing can ruin a person into being a sexual predator. She, though violent and anti-social, has a very strong moral compass and believes in punishing the perpetrator rather than make him spend days in jail.
The book also uses the mystery to reflect upon dormant Nazi sentiments in Sweden. Since, the crimes were committed against women with Jewish names using phrases from the Book of Leviticus, it was assumed that Gottfried murdered those women due to his Nazi sentiments.
Another concept that was present in the subtext was of judgement against a person declared mentally unstable. Lisbeth has eidetic memory, and is far more technically proficient than a normal person but is often judged and called as a girl with two brain cells.
