The Girl in the Spider's Web: A Lisbeth Salander Novel

If you aren’t ready to let Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist go yet, this book by David Lagercrantz is a worthy follow up. While I missed the developing relationship between Blomkvist and Figuerola that began in Larsson’s The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and Larsson’s development of Lisbeth’s appearance into that of a slightly more mature and sophisticated woman, I found the story, the action and the development of the history of one of the remaining members of Lisbeth’s family, her twin sister Camilla, added a new dimension to the story.In addition there’s some fascinating information about the role of prime factorization in the world of data encryption, which though it may be old news these days, provides interesting reading for a lay person like me. It’s fun to see Lisbeth working to solve difficult problems and eventually resolving the issues she faces. I found it to be a fun and exciting read.

Sorry, David Lagercrantz, just isn't the same as Steig Larsson.

As always I thoroughly enjoy this book series surrounding the main characters of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. I have actually read the first three books twice now but this is my first time reading the new additions since the original author, Stieglitz Larsson’s, death. As always the series doesn’t disappoint, very well written and leaves me unable to put the book down as I hang in suspense wanting to know what’s going to happen next. I live with serious health issues that have unfortunately permanently disabled me now and to have this kind of very welcome entertainment via these books to get my mind off my daily suffering and onto the amazingly interesting subject matter within these books is a blessing for me. I really enjoy them and I’m now going to start the next one in the series with great enthusiasm. I highly recommend them. Enjoy!

A Swedish computer genius’ life is under threat. The NSA is hacked. It is going to take a computer expert to bring all of these strands together. Welcome back Lisbeth Salander.After Stieg Larsson’s death in 2004 like many fans of the Millennium Series, I was afraid that I had lost Lisbeth, Mikael Bloomkvist and the rest of the characters I had grown to love. David Lagercrantz brought them back in 2015’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web and gave them a new mystery to solve.For those unfamiliar with the Millennium Series here are the main two characters. Lisbeth Salander is the daughter of an abusive father who is a Russian defector. Her father is given complete protection by Säpo, the Swedish secret Service, which allows him to terrorize Lisbeth and her mother. At the age of 12, Lisbeth, having witnessed too much of his violence, takes revenge and sets her father on fire. Mikael Bloomkvist is an investigative journalist for the magazine Millennium. He is known for writing blockbuster pieces that expose corruption in Swedish society. Most recently he has been greatly aided by Lisbeth.The Girl in the Spider’s Web is the first book in the series written by Mr. Lagercrantz. Here we meet Frans Balder, a master computer programmer who has quit his job to return to Sweden to take care of his autistic son. He has also taken his research into Artificial Intelligence with him. Balder is warned that his life and work are danger from a secret criminal organization called “the Spiders” who are led by the mysterious Thanos. In hope of shedding light on his work and the threats against him, Baldor arranges to meet Mikael Bloomkvist. Meanwhile, Lisbeth Salander has been trying to hunt down The Spiders for her own reasons. In her efforts she has helped a group of hackers to break into the NSA’s intranet, and given her information on the threat to Baldor. As all of this comes together, Lisbeth’s past pops up to play a significant role in the investigation.It is not easy to pick up someone else’s work and carry it on. Mr. Lagercrantz has done a very good job adapting our familiar and loved characters to his voice. This is even more true since we now have not only a new author, but a new translator also. As with any change, the new tone of the novel is a little disconcerting at first. One review in Upsala Nya Tidning described the portrayal of Lisbeth and Mikael as “more brooding” and “less cartoonish.” My impression of the reinterpretation of these characters is the opposite. To me this novel is much less dark. This may be because it is more plot driven than character driven than the previous novels. I am not sure if this is a result of the original writing, the new translator or both.It is true that by the fourth book of a series, characters have a set of personality traits that well defined. That does not mean that characters should not grow. Unfortunately, there is little growth in this novel. It is a good mystery. The plot is compelling. It held my attention and was fun to read. But neither Lisbeth nor Mikael develop or change. There is nothing that moves them forward as people. This book could stand alone, and while there are some references that a new reader might miss, it would not affect the mystery in any way. The problem is that having read the previous books I was looking for new pieces in the personalities of my “friends” I did not find them here.www,readinginthe2ndhalf.blogspot.com

I was a big fan of Stieg's Larsson's trilogy published in the USA 2008-2009. I gobbled them up as soon as they came out. I particularly liked "Dragon Tattoo" and I enjoyed the US and Swedish film versions of that story as well. While I liked the succeeding two books, "Fire" and "Hornet's Nest" I felt they treated Lisbeth Salander as more of a super-hero, and they both felt a bit like comic book treatments. However, I must admit that Amazon readers generally don't agree with me based on ratings and number of reviews. "Dragon Tattoo" was 4.5 stars with 6000 reviews; the other two Larsson books each had 8500 reviews and 4.5 stars. On the one hand while I was sad to hear of Larsson's demise realizing there would be no more "The Girl...." books, I was satisfied that the stories had probably run their course; I was ready to move on to new things. When it was announced a few years back that the series would continue under the authorship of David Lagercrantz I wasn't too excited - I was not familiar with any successful extensions of a deceased author's work, yet aware of a couple disasters.Recently, I read the Washington Post's Maureen Corrigan review of "The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye", book #5 if you're counting. In it she comments that #4, "The Girl in the Spider's Web" (SW) , had received terrific reviews and recalled Larsson's "numbed noir atmosphere" yet eliminated some of his stylist faults; I decided to give Lagercrantz a shot and try SW.I found it to be very different, not in a good way in many cases, from the original. For one thing, it's main focus was not on Millenium magazine, star reporter Blomqvist and the rest of the team. Rather it had an awful lot to do with hacking, computer security, software, and the inner workings of NSA, Sweden's Sapo, and the Stockholm police. Salander's presence in the first half on the book is mostly in the background, i.e., by reference; I kept waiting for her to make a grand entrance. Finally, she appears, and it's not so grand. She encounters a bad guy and smites him.....in a game of chess. He admits to some evil doings, confesses all, and Salander lets him go! A kinder, gentler, Salander? Well, yes and no. She does come to the rescue of a young boy with an all too common affliction, befriends him and saves him again, and again.I thought the writing style was inferior. Page 310: "Kajsa could tell that he felt terrible about shooting those children (reviewer's note, two little girls, both in the face). He was a murderer, a man whose specialty had been torture...but he still had his moral boundaries..." I didn't feel the same tension that I recall in the Larsson books, but then again it's been almost 8 years. Occasionally, some of the dialogue seemed off. Occasionally, there would be a response that didn't seem just right in English. I'm not sure if that's on the translator or the author, but it was a bit annoying. The plot wasn't that interesting to me. The original books were longer by about 250 - 350 pages but they seemed to fly by faster than SW. The comic book aura is still there. A leading character is shot, entry and exit wound; takes some anti-biotics but no doctor, no stitches - really!? And several key characters use handles to disguise their web identity, e.g. The Wasp - if you're between 12 and 28 you probably know who that was, or is, I'm not sure.In conclusion, let's first take a look at the Amazon numbers. Four stars for SW, down 1/2 star, but 9600 reviews. I suspect that the reader count may have been boosted in part by the advent of e-readers in the ensuing years. Will I read "Eye for an Eye"? Probably not, but I may feel differently a year from now.