The story is about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden and about her uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. It?s about Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet?s disappearance, and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old genius hacker who 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.