'The Girl Who Played With Fire' by Stieg Larsson

Already, a nimbus of legend surrounds the story: In late 2004, Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson delivered to his publisher three finished manuscripts -- the opening salvos in a rumored 10-part suspense narrative. Like a latter-day Sjowall-Wahloo, the husband-and-wife detective novelists whose Martin Beck decology (1965-75) engaged Olof Palme-era political unrest, Larsson sought to explore and explode the moral deficits, irresponsible government and extremist movements that characterize postmillennial Europe. And, he admitted, he wanted to ensure a plush retirement.

Not long after, the author suffered a fatal coronary. His death, which truncated Larsson's stewardship of the liberal investigative journal Expo, sparked a susurrus rustle of conspiracy theories; it also sounded a grace note amid the chorus of praise heralding "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," his posthumous debut. In the years since, Larsson's legacy has evolved rapidly, ineluctably, ubiquitously: After selling a combined 3 million copies in Sweden (population: 9 million), the so-called Millennium novels stormed foreign shores, collecting rhapsodic notices and swamping international bestseller charts -- even, in the case of "Dragon Tattoo," clocking more than six months on U.S. bestseller lists.

This last statistic is especially notable. Scandinavian crime writers in translation are legion: Karin Fossum, whose spare, mournful Inspector Sejer novels evoke the wintry anomie of southern Norway; Arnaldur Indridason, the bleak bard of Reykjavik; Henning Mankell, creator of the moody Kurt Wallander. Yet none have gained significant popular traction in America.

So how did "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," a novel variously hailed as artful, urgent and conscientious, stake a claim on the bestseller stamping grounds of James Patterson and Stephenie Meyer, terrain traditionally hostile to art, urgency and conscience?

The answer is simple: Scalp those umlauted o's, prize the double-s' apart, pave the varicose waterways of Larsson's Stockholm, and behold -- the Millennium novels are outfitted like urban-American thrillers, thick-skinned and sinewy, kinked with absurd plot twists and steeped in gore. While "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" read like a Nordic "Silence of the Lambs," its dynamic, brawny sequel, "The Girl Who Played With Fire," reanimates the tropes of the political thriller.