A literary critic recently examined whether the books had spawned the spate of new novels with titles beginning with “The Girl” or having “girl” in the title. About 810 novels with “girl” in the title are in fact about young women or older women, not children or adolescents. Male authors are three times more likely than female authors to kill off or “disappear” the titular character, though most characters survive to the conclusion of the novel or series.

Well, golly, this is hardly anything new. The “girl” usage for any female up into her thirties has been around forever. I don’t think Stieg Larsson had much to do with it. For instance, it immediately leaps to mind that the great John D. MacDonald, in his classic Travis McGee novels, the titles of which always included a color, thought this way (The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper is a good indication). And that was back in the sixties. See also Sam Spade and many others from way the hell back when. And yeah, many of these women ended up dead. Why? I dunno. Ask Shakespeare about Juliet and Ophelia. Apparently it sells.