The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Chapter 10 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Thursday, January 9 – Friday, January 31

  • Blomkvist has dinner at Martin Vanger's. Martin's dentist and longtime lover, Eva, who lives out of town, joins them. Blomkvist enjoys himself.
  • One afternoon, Cecilia Vanger comes over. She tells Blomkvist that she wishes she never heard of the mystery of Harriet Vanger. Her uncle, Henrik, has been obsessed with it forever.
  • She wants to see if Blomkvist is obsessed, too. All in all, Cecilia is nice to Blomkvist.
  • One morning, Henrik meets Harriet's mother, Isabella. She pokes him with her cane and tells him not to mess around in her business.
  • One day, Blomkvist goes to visit Detective Morell. Detective Morell thinks Harriet was killed.
  • He thinks she had information about somebody, and that somebody then killed her to quiet her.
  • The Detective thinks that, "every police officer has his unsolved mystery" (10.98).
  • When he was young, he heard police talk about the unsolved murder of girl called Rebecka. She was raped and tortured. Harriet is to him what Rebecka was to them.
  • Blomkvist is scheduled to serve his prison term on March 17th. He thinks about this and pets the cat, Tjorven, who lives around the Vanger property.
  • He'll work on the case while in jail. He talks to Henrik every day about it.
  • Finally, Berger is un-angry enough at Blomkvist to call him.
  • She drives to Hedeby to stay with him. They have dinner together in the guesthouse.
  • That same Friday afternoon, Salander is having her third session with Nils Bjurman.
  • This time, he asks her inappropriate comments about sex and her sex life. She's sarcastic with him at the end, but mostly maintains her cool.
  • Palmgren would never treat her like this. Bjurman will soon be "a Major Problem" (10.147).