Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up… in Sweden. Mikael became interested in investigative journalism at a young age. He made his first great story at only 23, uncovering the hideout of bank robbers. Mikael earned the nickname “Kalle” Blomkvist from this story, referring to a fictional Swedish boy detective.
Living… in his Stockholm apartment. His teenage daughter, Pernilla, stays with him sometimes but usually lives with Mikael’s ex-wife.
Profession… journalist and publisher at Millenium Magazine. Mikael is a hard-working financial reporter whose brutal honesty has made him wildly unpopular. Stockholm’s wealthy business elites don’t have much patience for their dirty secrets being made public.
Interests… mystery and danger. When he gets going on a case, it consumes him completely.
Relationship Status… having an affair with his co-worker, Erika Berger. This is partly what ended Mikael’s marriage. Erika’s husband, on the other hand, knows of and accepts the affair. Mikael gets along well with Erika, though dating your editor has its complications.
Challenge… overcoming a humiliating libel conviction. After releasing an expose of billionaire speculator-turned-corporate-leader Hans-Erik Wennerström, he’s forced into hiding. His has no choice but to seek vindication and put Wennerström behind bars.
Personality… dry and direct. Mikael is not humorless, but comes across as really serious. Professionally, he has gained a newfound sense of caution. He tells an excited employer that he’s found a lead on the case, but that, “the last time I reported on something without being absolutely sure, I lost my life savings.”
Get to Know him in...
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This English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel by Stieg Larsson follows a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, as he investigates the disappearance of a weary patriarch's niece from 40 years ago. He is aided by the pierced, tattooed, punk computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander. As they work together in the investigation, Blomkvist and Salander uncover immense corruption beyond anything they have ever imagined.
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After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in a hospital and is set to face trial for attempted murder on her eventual release. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Salander must prove her innocence. In doing this she plays against powerful enemies and her own past.
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Mikael Blomkvist, publisher of Millennium magazine, has made his living exposing the crooked and corrupt practices of establishment Swedish figures. So when a young journalist approaches him with a meticulously researched thesis about sex trafficking in Sweden and those in high office who abuse underage girls, Blomkvist immediately throws himself into the investigation.
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Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist return
She is the girl with the dragon tattoo—a genius hacker and uncompromising misfit. He is a crusading journalist whose championing of the truth often brings him to the brink of prosecution.
Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female superhacker—a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. The implications are staggering. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Salander for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. The secret they are both chasing is at the center of a tangled web of spies, cybercriminals, and governments around the world, and someone is prepared to kill to protect it . . .
The duo who captivated millions of readers in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest join forces again in this adrenaline-charged, uniquely of-the-moment thriller.
From the Hardcover edition. -
Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.
Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back. -
Part blistering espionage thriller, part riveting police procedural, and part piercing exposé on social injustice, this second book in the Millennium series is a masterful, endlessly satisfying novel.
Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past. -
The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo is about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden. And about her octogenarian uncle is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. It's about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism and an unexpected connection between themselves.
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Swedish thriller based on Stieg Larsson's novel about a male journalist and a young female hacker. In the opening of the movie, Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged publisher for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Nevertheless, he is hired by Henrik Vanger in order to solve a cold case, the disappearance of Vanger's niece
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In Stockholm, Sweden, hacker Lisbeth Salander is hired by Frans Balder, a computer engineer, to retrieve a program that he believes it is too dangerous to exist.
