Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy has proven to be that rarest of things, a literary blockbuster in an age when book sales seem to be perpetually in an irreversible tailspin. Not only that, but they have succeeded despite incredibly dark and violent subject matter, particularly aimed against women, which seems like it might render the stories unpalatable to a mainstream audience. Yet the success of the books - no doubt driven in part by the mystique cultivated around Larsson's death from a heart attack at the age of 50 - speaks for itself, as does the staggering success of the trilogy of Swedish television films based on the books which were released worldwide in 2010, to considerable acclaim. (For the record, I thought they were pretty unspectacular, though I liked the books well enough.)