Even the bad guys are described as engaged in deep contemplation. One Larsson character takes a bath and thinks for so long the water grows cold. Others close the door to their office and think for so long that everyone has left by the time they come out. They sit “as if paralyzed, thinking.” They go for a long run in order to think through a problem. “She sat quietly for two hours, smoking one cigarette after another, thinking.” Armansky spends the whole Easter weekend at his cabin, thinking. Lisbeth stares at her computer screen for eleven hours while an idea emerges in some “unexplored nook of her brain.”

The words “think,” “thinking,” and “thought” appear almost 500 times in the three books.

But how did Stieg Larsson himself imagine Lisbeth Salander? How might he have “seen” her face in his own mind? We may have an answer, thanks to Brian Davis, a British writer and media artist.

Davis took the technology created by law enforcement to make composite drawings of suspects and used it to sketch her face based solely on the description of the character drawn from the Millennium books.

image by Brian Davis

In addition to Lisbeth Salander, he has used the software to crank out mugshots of the likes of Lolita, Emma Bovary, and other famed literary characters. The site Davis created for his work, The Composites, attracted 6,000 visitors in its first few days and many fans were soon asking him to apply his talents to their own favorite. Additionally, stories have been done about him on by the BBC and The Atlantic.

A clever idea, to be sure, but we’ll stick with the image of Lisbeth retained in our brain from the first time we met her.

Alexandra and Alexander Ahndoril. Photo by Julie O'Connor.

Lars Kepler is, of course, the nom de plume of the famed Swedish literary pair Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril, pictured here, best known for their former “day jobs” as playwright (he), literary critic (she), and novelists and literary fiction writers (both). They had tried several times to do something together, they told us, but “we argued every time.” That is, until Lars (after Stieg Larsson) Kepler (after the famed astronomer) appeared in their lives, as they describe in Chapter 6 of The Tattooed Girl.

Their first book, The Hypnotist, came out last year in the US and their second novel, The Paganini Contract, is due out in English later this year. Both have been Swedish and European bestsellers and The Hypnotist was on the ‘top ten of 2011’ list of several US critics. The couple’s third book, The Fire Witness, is now at the top of the bestseller lists in Sweden.

Now come the films.

The Hypnotist is currently shooting in Stockholm under the direction of Lasse Hallström, noted for his “Cider House Rules” and “Chocolat”, both nominated for best-film Oscars. Hallström learned his craft in music videos (notably for ABBA) and first became well-known here for his films “What’s Eating Gilbert’s Grape” and “My Life as a Dog,” the latter earning him an Academy Award nomination for best director. He has also directed four famed actors to Oscar nominations: Michael Caine (who won for “Cider House Rules”), Juliette Binoche, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Judi Dench.

Now comes the news that the Ahndoril’s second book, The Paganini Contract, will be adapted for film by Kjell Sundvall, another Swede. Sundvall’s credits include a TV series based on the well-known Nordic noir character Martin Beck, the brooding police officer created by the revered pioneers of Swedish crime fiction, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Principle shooting for the film will start this September.

Interestingly, these two directors have more in common than the making of these movies based on noted Swedish detectives: they were co-directors for the music video “ABBA-The Definitive Collection” (2002).

One more tidbit: Joona Linna, the very Swedish detective hero of these stories, is being portrayed in both films by Tobias Yilliacus, a Finnish actor. While many of us may find that ironic, the Ahndorils probably won’t. “Joona”, the authors told us, is the Finnish version of Jonah, the biblical prophet who is cast into the sea and swallowed by a whale. “Metaphorically, the whale is the plot and Joona remains in him until he solves the case, when he is thrown up on the shore again,” said Alexander. Also, added Alexandra, “Finns represent the largest minority in Sweden and the accent is very beautiful to us Swedes. It’s very melancholic, both sad and serious. For Swedes, it’s a very attractive way of speaking.”

Is there a better description of detectives in Swedish fiction? As for Lars Kepler, he had better start working on those other five books.

You’ve written about how rape is portrayed in well-known films. What’s your conclusion?

Once you start looking at rape scenes in movies, it’s like, “oh my god,” because so many movies have them in it, especially American ones. If you take, for example, Charlize Theron in “Monster” or Hilary Swank in “Boys Don’t Cry”…the women are screaming because they are being raped. If this is the case, then you can show their breasts or their near-naked bodies in a way that you would never see in a movie that is not X-rated. If she is screaming out of lust, you can’t show it. But if she’s being raped, you can show it. That provides filmmakers an incentive to show rape. And there are quite a few women stars who were never acknowledged as truly talented until they had done a rape scene. It’s the film world’s rite of passage: you have to be raped on camera to become known as a great actor.

Even if Rooney Mara does not win the Oscar, she has certainly established herself not only as Lisbeth for the next two films, but as an extremely talented actress. How much of her new reputation is due to her total performance, and how much to submitting to a rape scene, will always remain unknown. But it does seem to highlight Wennstam’s point. After all, Noomi Rapace, the Swedish actress who played Lisbeth in the three Scandinavian film versions of the Larsson trilogy—and played her so well that many fans could not imagine how Rooney Mara could match the performance—is also now a major figure in Hollywood, having appeared in the Sherlock Holmes sequel and in four other international movies now in production or pre-production.

Revenge is in the air. Slowly but surely studios have been waking up to the realization that female-led action films can be potent box office successes. Notable among the game-changers in this category are the recent Haywire and Underworld: Awakening. Notes Melissa Silverstein on her Women and Hollywood blog, “Haywire does what has been done before for the dudes – make a female athlete a movie star. The action is not toned down because she is a girl. In fact it’s ratcheted up because she is the best and no one can figure out how to kill her.”

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo isn’t purely an action film, of course, but when Lisbeth does take action, Scott Meslow points out, it is deeply cathartic in a similar fashion. Meslow has a lot more to say about the trend toward big-budget, female-fronted action movies in a recent essay on TheAtlantic.com. A few highlights:

It’s long been accepted in popular culture that that the traditional “action film” is the gender-reversed mirror image of the “chick flick”: a film made by men, starring men, for men. But today’s female-led action films can be seen as a direct response to decades of suppression by both Hollywood and society as a whole: the subjugation and victimization of womankind, primarily by men. It is perhaps no coincidence that the plots of both Haywire and Underworld: Evolution hinge on the strong female leads being betrayed by men that they trust. And then there’s Lisbeth Salander, the icy, revenge-driven character from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo who has quickly become a contemporary fictional icon. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo isn’t strictly an action film, but the unconventional Lisbeth makes for a deeply compelling heroine, and when she eventually does take action, it’s satisfying in part because of the deeper, more cathartic feminist implications….

Of course, not all female-led action movies can be held up as groundbreaking or thoughtful. There are undeniably brainless, sexist, female-led action movies that continue to routinely appear in theaters (see the last year’s ugly, regressive Sucker Punch). The most insipid entries in the genre, like the Resident Evil series or the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movies, tend to be based on modern video games—a reflection, in part, of the fact that prospective sources for action films starring women didn’t really exist until recent years. The storied superhero and super-spy movies that hit theaters each summer, which comprise most of the action roles available to men, are based on properties that are decades (and sometimes centuries) old. By contrast, the three best-reviewed female-led action movies in recent years—Salt, Hanna, and now Haywire—are completely original properties, with strong, well-written female leads to match….

Hollywood, like the rest of the country, still has some work to do before the opportunities offered to men and women can truly be called equal. But for all the bluster about Hollywood’s political agenda, in the end its goal is the same as any other industry: to make money. If audiences respond to action movies starring women, Hollywood will continue to make action movies starring women.

It was one thing when the department store H&M released a fashion-friendly version of Salander’s “dirty, worn down” look last Fall: hoodies, leather motorcycle jackets, boots, a Swedish/American flag hybrid t-shirt, etc.

But Lisbeth on the runway?

Yes, and in dramatic fashion, thanks to the prestigious Swedish house of Dagmar, last year’s winner of Scandinavia’s most prestigious fashion award. Citing sensuality, art and female strength as a constant source of inspiration for its arty-chic style, Dagmar’s autumn collection “The Swedish Woman” features references to both Lisbeth Salander and Sigrid Hjertén. “The latter, a renowned early 20th century Swedish colorist, meets the present-day literary icon who has renewed the image of the Swedish woman,” blushed the official website for fashion week.

So it was off to the Dagmar website to watch the models parade on the runway, and it became obvious that one art form in the culture really could translate well into another.

Seeing how Dagmar had so successfully executed their interpretation of “Lisbeth Salander” we were curious to learn more about Sigrid Hjerten, a major figure in Swedish modernism. We found Hjerten studied with Matisse, was influenced by the way Cezanne dealt with color, had her debut exhibition in Stockholm in 1912, and suffered from psychosomatic illness all her life. Wikipedia’s assessment of her concludes, “Hjertén had to fight the prejudices of her time throughout her career. Her paintings seem extremely personal for the era in which they were made, when issues of color and form were uppermost in artists’ minds. Her interest in humankind was often manifested in dramatic, even theatrical compositions, while her approach to color was emotional as well as theoretical.”

Fine examples of Hjerten’s artwork that make clear her influence on the Dagmar collection can be found here and here.

The literary website and magazine RT Book Review recently passed on their congratulations to us for being nominated for a 2012 Edgar Allen Poe Award.

The 2012 Edgars, as they are informally called, are selected by Mystery Writers of America. The winners will be announced this Spring at the 66th annual banquet. This year’s Edgar Awards Grand Master is bestselling author Martha Grimes. 

RT featured The Tattooed Girl in the July 2011 issue, as that month’s non-fic pick. The book is an unauthorized but incredibly in-depth guide to all things Stieg Larsson and his series. In the July issue, RT’s Managing Editor Liz French interviewed Dan Burstein, one of our co-authors. Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview in these blog posts, or on the RT site.

The Sony/David Fincher/Rooney Mara/Daniel Craig version of the film was to be released on February 10, but India’s Central Board of Film Certification insisted that several scenes be edited.

Director David Fincher refused to cut the controversial scenes, which included nudity in the love-making scenes and the troubling rape and torture scenes.

Sony acknowledged that it would not be opening the film in India and released a statement, which read in part, “While we are committed to maintaining and protecting the vision of the director, we will, as always, respect the guidelines set by the Board.”

According to TheWrap.com, the film has already made nearly $100 million in the U.S. and more than $165 million at the overseas box office, and appears on its way to more than $200 globally, with much of Asia still ahead.

BuzzFocus.com, an entertainment blog, suggests that the resemblance to Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is more than coincidental: “Quean looks to take the first leg of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy and will try to take it to the small screen… I can’t wait to see what CBS claims will be the difference. Maybe she’ll have a horse tattoo?”

We did some further checking on the cultural mentality behind this new show, since we have a feeling the independent, feminist essence of Stieg Larsson’s story and the Lisbeth Salander character are going to be ignored here in favor of more prurient interests. Why were we not surprised to discover that “quean” is not a fictional spelling nor contemporary millennial slang? Rather “quean” has a very distinct old-fashioned meaning: “a disreputable woman; specifically: prostitute.” And the example the dictionary comes up with for its use is: “in pirate tales there’s always the raucous tavern and its cadre of buxom queans.” Synonyms include bimbo, chippie, hoochie, hussy, floozy, slut, and tramp.

In Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth (and Blomkvist) resist the efforts by lawyers, guardians, psychiatrists, police, and other representatives of the state to slander Lisbeth Salander by calling her a prostitute. But CBS seems to have no such compunction about their as yet uncast “queanly” character.

Oh, and while CBS is stepping heavily on the toes of Lisbeth Salander fans with this odd new show, it may also be offering offense to a real-life female civic leader. Quean is set in Oakland, California, where the first female mayor in that city’s history is now presiding. The female mayor, a Chinese American, is named Jean Quan.

We’ll reserve judgment on the show until we see it. But as of now, we think it may be time for Mikael  Blomkvist to write another exposé for Millennium.

Wennerström’s account at Bank of Kroenenfield in the Cayman Islands, containing $260 million…had been emptied the day before Millennium published its exposé.

Oh, well. Our prognostication that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo might not garner great box office has turned out to be off the mark. Although, we add defensively, not as far off as one critic who characterized its opening as “a high profile murder at the multiplex.”

What got us into this apologetic mood was the news that the film was No. 1 in France over the past weekend, with a box office of $3.2 million. That in turn led us to check Boxofficemojo.com, which calculated a $15.7 million draw from 4,630 locations in 53 foreign markets over the same three days, thereby elevating the film’s foreign gross total to $70.8 million. (By comparison, the Swedish version garnered $94 million abroad.)

Add that to a domestic gross to date of $94.8 (roughly equal to the production budget, and $84 million more than the Swedish version did in the US), and the film has now reached nearly two-thirds of what Lisbeth, posing as Monica Sholes, revengefully withdrew from the account of Wennerström, the corrupt financier who had engineered Mikael Blomkvist’s conviction for libel.

Guess the producers can now follow Salander/Sholes and, as the book put it, “live a life of luxury at one of Zurich’s most expensive hotels.”