The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

“There’s been a symbiotic relationship between Scandinavian and British crime fiction for almost 50 years. Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo’s 1960s/70s crime series featuring the introspective, troubled Inspector Martin Beck inspired a generation of British crime-writers who then gave it right back. Beck partly begat John Harvey’s Resnick, who helped beget Mankell’s Wallender. Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson uses the tropes of both Scandinavian and British crime fiction but he is a one-off or, rather, was a one-off - tragically, he died of a heart attack, aged 50, in 2004.’ Read the review at the Guardian.