Forty years ago Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse no witnesses no evidence. But her uncle Henrik is convinced that she was murdered by someone in her own family the deeply dysfunctional Vanger clan. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired to investigate but when he links Harriet s disappearance to a string of gruesome murders from forty years ago he needs a competent assistant and he gets one: computer hacker Lisbeth Salander a tattoed truculent angry girl who rides a motorbike like a Hell s Angel and handles makeshift weapons with the skill born of remorseless rage. This unlikely pair form a fragile bond as they delve into the sinister past of this island-bound tightly-knit family. But the Vangers are a secretive lot and Mikael and Lisbeth are about to find out just how far they re prepared to go to protect themselves and each other.