Plot Overview The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, written by Stieg Larsson, is a complex murder mystery thriller based in Sweden. The plot involves power, family, love, sex, and death, making it intriguing and entertaining to read. The story revolves around a wealthy Swedish family – the family of Henrik Vanger whose great-niece Harriet Vanger has been missing for 40 years. Since then, Henrick has made several unsuccessful attempts to find out what happened to him, but the entire investigation seemed futile. As her disappearance could not be justified it was concluded that she was dead and her body missing, Henrick devotes most of his life to discovering the mysterious disappearance of his niece and somewhere inside he holds his family responsible for his fate. Every year on Henrick's birthday, Harriet gave him pressed flowers and even 40 years after her disappearance, he receives the same gift of pressed flowers from an anonymous person every year. He has been tortured by these gifts and is obsessed with finding the truth behind it all. So when he learns that Mikael Blomkvist, a daring journalist, lost a libel case bought by a corrupt Swedish business tycoon, Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, he decides to hire him to investigate Harriet's case. Mikael accepts his business proposal in exchange for a generous salary and solid evidence that will help him expose Wennerstrom and clear his name in the affair. He leaves his job at the magazine company and moves to Hedeby, a small island where the Vanger family is located. In order to avoid suspicion, he pretends to undertake the task of writing an article on the history of the Vanger family as a pretext to collect data on Harriet's case. Soon, Blomkvist realizes that... middle of paper... "national" hero. Even though his intentions concern the general good of society, his means to achieve the end results are questionable. She represents a new modern hero who wants to fight evil by manipulating/rejecting the system. (Finn, 2013) Unlike other female characters, she is socially awkward, chaotic and radical and contrasts sharply with Blomkvist's character. Blomkvist represents the power of education and journalism as a means to fight evil while Salander represents the power of independence and violence to defeat evil. Works Cited Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. (3rd ed., p. 432). Novato: New World Library. Finn, Patrick. (2013), “DRAM 571 Course Notes/Slides”, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. Larsson, S. (2008). The girl with the dragon tattoo. (p.465). New York: Penguin Group.