Lisbeth Salander, the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker, is the focus of the story. Mikael Blomkvist—crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium—has decided to publish a story exposing an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden. Members of highly-placed Swedish societ,y government and business fields are involved. Right on publication the two reporters responsible for the story are brutally murdered. Blomkivst is shocked to find Lisbeth's fingerprints on the murder weapon and he alone is convinced she did not do it. The journey to exoneration is a painful one emotionally for her.