Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her beloved uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and the tattooed and troubled but resourceful computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) to investigate. When the pair link Harriets disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from almost forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves. Author Stieg Larsson, who died suddenly in 2004, left behind three unpublished novels, known as the Millennium trilogy, which have become a global sensation, elevating Larsson to the worlds second best-selling author last year (behind The Kite Runners Khaled Hosseini). The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is one of the decades major literary success stories, selling over 8,000,000 copies worldwide and the film adaptation is the highest grossing Swedish film in history and 2009s highest-grossing film in Europe.