The Millennium series … bestselling novels originally written in Swedish by the late Stieg Larsson. Originally, ten books in total were planned, but only three were completed. The novels in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, were first published in 2005, 2006 and 2007 respectively. …

The primary characters in the series are Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. Lisbeth is an intelligent, eccentric woman in her twenties with a photographic memory and poor social skills. Blomkvist is an investigative journalist with a history similar to Larsson’s.

An unlikely success.

Clearly Larsson was no skilled author. He breaks most of the rules on what makes a successful novel. Yet the series kept me engaged throughout. If a 4th novel is ever released, I’ll buy it too.

I liked that the books are unapologetically Swedish. But never have I read any books with so much unnecessary (infuriating) detail. If I had a krona for every coffee in those 3 books, … I’d have a lot of kronor.

A skilled murder mystery writer – Ian Rankin, for example – could make one excellent novel out of the 3 simply by eliminating every factoid and character unimportant to the actual story.

Why did any publisher accept those manuscripts?

Salander is a truly weird and fascinating character. Very original.

Also well done were the endings of each. I could not guess in advance on what would happen.

The exotic setting appealed to me, too.

I guess I recommend these books, if there is anyone out there who has not yet read them. No doubt you’ve already heard warnings about the scenes of violent sex.

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

Scandinavian TV and movie adaptations have already been released.

In the American movies, Daniel Craig will play Mikael Blomkvist, Rooney Mara Lisbeth Salander. The 3 films are slated for release in 2011, 2012 and 2013.