If You Like "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" by Steig Larsson...
If you like “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson, you may like these titles -- some have intriguingly complex plots, while others offer portraits of unusual, unique females.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
“Renée Michel, 54 and widowed, is the stolid concierge in an elegant Paris hôtel particulier. Though short, ugly, and plump, Renée has, as she says, always been poor, but she has a secret: she's a ferocious autodidact who's better versed in literature and the arts than any of the building's snobby residents. Meanwhile, supersmart 12-year-old Paloma Josse, who switches off narration with Renée, lives in the building with her wealthy, liberal family. Having grasped life's futility early on, Paloma plans to commit suicide on her 13th birthday. The arrival of a new tenant, Kakuro Ozu, who befriends both the young pessimist and the concierge alike, sets up their possible transformations. By turns very funny (particularly in Paloma's sections) and heartbreaking, Barbery never allows either of her dour narrators to get too cerebral or too sentimental. Her simple plot and sudden denouement add up to a great deal more than the sum of their parts.”—review from Publishers Weekly. © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
by Muriel Barbery
“Renée Michel, 54 and widowed, is the stolid concierge in an elegant Paris hôtel particulier. Though short, ugly, and plump, Renée has, as she says, always been poor, but she has a secret: she's a ferocious autodidact who's better versed in literature and the arts than any of the building's snobby residents. Meanwhile, supersmart 12-year-old Paloma Josse, who switches off narration with Renée, lives in the building with her wealthy, liberal family. Having grasped life's futility early on, Paloma plans to commit suicide on her 13th birthday. The arrival of a new tenant, Kakuro Ozu, who befriends both the young pessimist and the concierge alike, sets up their possible transformations. By turns very funny (particularly in Paloma's sections) and heartbreaking, Barbery never allows either of her dour narrators to get too cerebral or too sentimental. Her simple plot and sudden denouement add up to a great deal more than the sum of their parts.”—review from Publishers Weekly. © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The White Tiger
by Aravind Adiga
“Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.”—catalog summary
by Aravind Adiga
“Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.”—catalog summary
Smilla’s Sense of Snow
by Peter Hoeg
“Smilla Qaaviqaaq Jaspersen is the daughter of a Danish doctor and an Inuit woman from Greenland. Raised in Greenland, she lives in Copenhagen and, as befits her ancestry, is an expert on snow. When one of her few friends, an Inuit boy, dies under mysterious circumstances, she refuses to believe it was an accident. She decides to investigate and discovers that even the police don't want her involved. But Smilla persists, and as snow-covered Copenhagen settles down for a quiet Christmas, Smilla's investigation leads her from a fanatically religious accountant, to a tough-talking pathologist, to the secret files of the Danish company responsible for extracting most of Greenland's mineral wealth. Finally, she boards a ship with an international cast of villains - and a large stash of cocaine - bound for a mysterious mission on an inhospitable island off Greenland.”—catalog summary
by Peter Hoeg
“Smilla Qaaviqaaq Jaspersen is the daughter of a Danish doctor and an Inuit woman from Greenland. Raised in Greenland, she lives in Copenhagen and, as befits her ancestry, is an expert on snow. When one of her few friends, an Inuit boy, dies under mysterious circumstances, she refuses to believe it was an accident. She decides to investigate and discovers that even the police don't want her involved. But Smilla persists, and as snow-covered Copenhagen settles down for a quiet Christmas, Smilla's investigation leads her from a fanatically religious accountant, to a tough-talking pathologist, to the secret files of the Danish company responsible for extracting most of Greenland's mineral wealth. Finally, she boards a ship with an international cast of villains - and a large stash of cocaine - bound for a mysterious mission on an inhospitable island off Greenland.”—catalog summary
Gorky Park
by Martin Cruz Smith
“A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it.”—catalog summary
by Martin Cruz Smith
“A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profession. To identify the victims and uncover the truth, he must battle the KGB, FBI, and New York police as he performs the impossible--and tries to stay alive doing it.”—catalog summary
In the Woods
by Tana French
“After a 12-year-old Irish lad and his two pals fail to return from a day in the woods, searchers find only the terrified sixth grader--with blood-filled shoes and no memory of what happened. Now 32, the tragedy's sole survivor Rob Ryan is a detective on Dublin's Murder Squad. A current investigation takes Rob to the exact site of his childhood trauma. With the present case chillingly similar to his 20-year-old nightmare, Rob hopes to unlock the shrouded secrets of his past.”—catalog summary
by Tana French
“After a 12-year-old Irish lad and his two pals fail to return from a day in the woods, searchers find only the terrified sixth grader--with blood-filled shoes and no memory of what happened. Now 32, the tragedy's sole survivor Rob Ryan is a detective on Dublin's Murder Squad. A current investigation takes Rob to the exact site of his childhood trauma. With the present case chillingly similar to his 20-year-old nightmare, Rob hopes to unlock the shrouded secrets of his past.”—catalog summary
Beat the Reaper
by Josh Bazell
The carefully orchestrated life of Manhattan emergency room doctor and witness-protection program participant Peter Brown unravels in the course of a high-stakes day that begins with a mugging, an elevator encounter with a sexy pharmaceutical rep, and a new patient who knows him from his previous existence.
by Josh Bazell
The carefully orchestrated life of Manhattan emergency room doctor and witness-protection program participant Peter Brown unravels in the course of a high-stakes day that begins with a mugging, an elevator encounter with a sexy pharmaceutical rep, and a new patient who knows him from his previous existence.
The Intuitionist
by Colson Whitehead
“Set in a New York-like metropolis, it tells the tale of Lila Mae Watson, the first black woman elevator inspector. Now this may not sound impressive, but in the tricky universe Whitehead has constructed, elevators are mystical vehicles and the inspectors a priestly lot. But all is not peaceful in the cult of verticality: there is a war going on between two factions, the Empiricists, who work purely on the physical plane, and the Intuitionists, who inspect by sensing, or intuiting, the state of each machine. Watson is an Intuitionist whose faith is shaken to the core by a freak accident that not only jeopardizes her career but, as her attempt to clear her name draws her into a web of intrigue surrounding the enigmatic founder of her sect, puts her very life in danger. The story is mesmerizing, but it is Whitehead's shrewd and sardonic humor and agile explications of the insidiousness of racism and the eternal conflict between the material and the spiritual that make this such a trenchant and accomplished novel.”—review by Donna Seaman for Booklist
by Colson Whitehead
“Set in a New York-like metropolis, it tells the tale of Lila Mae Watson, the first black woman elevator inspector. Now this may not sound impressive, but in the tricky universe Whitehead has constructed, elevators are mystical vehicles and the inspectors a priestly lot. But all is not peaceful in the cult of verticality: there is a war going on between two factions, the Empiricists, who work purely on the physical plane, and the Intuitionists, who inspect by sensing, or intuiting, the state of each machine. Watson is an Intuitionist whose faith is shaken to the core by a freak accident that not only jeopardizes her career but, as her attempt to clear her name draws her into a web of intrigue surrounding the enigmatic founder of her sect, puts her very life in danger. The story is mesmerizing, but it is Whitehead's shrewd and sardonic humor and agile explications of the insidiousness of racism and the eternal conflict between the material and the spiritual that make this such a trenchant and accomplished novel.”—review by Donna Seaman for Booklist
Literature...becomes the living memory of a nation.
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn