Stieg Larsson spent his working life on the unglamorous side of journalism. Born in northern Sweden in 1954, he reported on socialist politics, founded and edited the anti-racist magazine Expo, and became one of Europe’s most dogged independent researchers of the far right, work that brought him threats rather than royalties.
The novels were written at night, apparently for his own satisfaction, and he did not live to see a single one published. He died of a heart attack in November 2004, aged 50, months before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo appeared in Sweden. What followed was one of publishing’s strangest afterlives: a trilogy, tens of millions of copies, films in two languages, and a heroine, Lisbeth Salander, who has outlasted every imitator sent after her.
His anger is what dates least. The Millennium novels are thrillers, certainly, but they are also an investigative reporter’s indictment of what powerful men are permitted to do to women, and the reporting instinct is visible in every chapter.
18 hours and 48 minutes
