Astonishing similarity: the fictional disappearance of Harriet Vanger...

(Moderators please move if you think this is inappropriately placed here.) At the risk of giving too much detail, I will say that I read aloud with my husband daily (it takes all sorts, remember). The book I chose, and I am only up to chapter 6 so far, and it is just getting going, is Stieg Larsson's best seller, the first in his Millenium Trilogy: 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. It is a superb crime novel and it has the advantages that it is both well written and has short chapters, (vg in a readaloud) and it is full of cliff hangers. Many people on here may have read it! To others, I recommend it!

In Chapter 6, old man Vanger, in his eighties, employs journalist Blomquist to find out what happened to young Harriet Vanger who 'disappeared' from the tiny Swedish island years ago, and who he fears may have been murdered. The sixteen year old was seen by lots of people in the afternoon, and then just vanished off the face of the earth when the only bridge to the mainland was blocked by a serious traffic accident. The old man considered the possibilities: was she abducted, and if so by whom and how? Exactly at what time, and why did nobody see it happening? Did she have an accident? All wells and old barns and dangerous rocks and similar on the small island were combed by squads of helpers to look for her. Was she murdered? If so where is the body and who hid it? It is an island, so they have scuba divers to look in the waters surrounding it for a body in case she could somehow, though most unlikely, have drowned or her body have been thrown in the sea. All boats on and around the island were accounted for, so she could not have taken one of them. The island was and is still semi-private and all the people on it at the time of the disappearnace were members of the Vanger family, and a few close associates and servants of theirs. Some family members were known to be hostile to Harriet. Her disappearnce into thin air, so to speak, is a mystery... so many similarities with the vanishing of the girl with the fleck in her eye. Our hero Blomquist, the journo, seems to be about to play the Pat Brown role in the case. Old man Vanger and Blomquist are so far the only seekers after truth, but his sidekick investigator, the intriguing Lisbeth Salander: the girl with the dragon tattoo, is likely, I feel, to be brought into the search soon.

ive read the trilogy, when you get to the end you will see that there is little that is similar.

I wondered if that would be so... However the start that I have read, with the points I have quoted, begins with many similar puzzling elements, I reckon.