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

Best yet forBloomkvist and Lizbeth. A well written and riveting book will hold your undivided attention. Great storyline and laying out the basis for an encore

As all the reading universe knows, Swedish author Stieg Larsson died before his three books featuring "The Girl" were published and so he never knew what blockbusters the books became. Sad.Sad, too, were the fans of those books who realized that there would never be another one, but soon the clamor began to find an author to carry on the series. Larsson's brother and father, who, under Swedish law, controlled his estate rather than his domestic partner of many years whom he never married, at length decided to pursue the possibility of continuing the series. They chose another Swedish journalist, David Lagercrantz, to carry it on. Thus, now, more than ten years after Larsson's death, his creation, Lisbeth Salander, lives again in The Girl in the Spider's Web.But readers dreaming of encountering an exact replica of Larsson's Salander in this book will probably be disappointed with it. Lagercrantz is a very different writer and, frankly, I found some of his prose a bit turgid and overwrought. Moreover, his device of ending every chapter on a cliffhanger began to irritate me a bit after a while. Nevertheless, overall, it was a good reading experience, and, after a bit of a slow start, he certainly kept me turning those pages.The plot, as usual with these books, is rather complicated, but, of course, the main element of it is the world of hackers - the good hackers vs. the bad hackers. The good hackers, naturally, are the group with which Salander is associated. Though they get off on invading the privacy of corporations and government agencies (including the NSA) right around the world, they do not do it with evil intent. They are interested in righting wrongs and correcting injustices.On the other side of the equation is a group known as the Spiders and these guys are pure evil. Surprisingly, Lisbeth's twin sister, Camilla, is a part of the Spiders, so we not only have good vs. evil but also twin vs. twin. This does not become apparent, however, until fairly late in the book.The tale begins with a Swedish professor who had divorced his wife and left his son in her care to take a job with a Silicon Valley tech firm. There, he worked on a project involving self-learning artificial intelligence. But at a certain point, he becomes concerned about his son, who is autistic and mute, and he abandons his job in California and returns to Sweden. He goes to his ex-wife's home and tells her he wants to take custody of their son. She gives him up without an argument.The professor tries without much luck to connect with his eight-year-old son. He then receives a warning that his life may be in danger and that bad guys may try to steal his research on AI. Alarmed, he contacts journalist Mikael Blomkvist, thinking that if he goes public with some of his research, there will be no reason to attack him. As Blomkvist arrives at the man's apartment to meet with him, a dark figure comes rushing out, and he finds the professor shot to death and his terrified son in shock.The plot really takes off at this point. Things had not been going well for Bloomkvist and his friends at Millenium magazine, but suddenly he finds himself sitting on top of a huge story that could possibly put him back on top and reverse the fortunes of the magazine. He needs the help of a hacker to get the information he needs for his story, so who's he gonna call? Lisbeth Salander, of course!My favorite parts of the book were when Lagercrantz was writing about Salander and about the autistic child, August. He seemed to have a real feeling for them. I thought the Bloomkvist parts were less successful, but then I've never been a big Bloomkvist fan. I could never understand why all those beautiful women wanted to tear their clothes off and throw themselves at him whenever they see him.It turns out that August is a savant whose special abilities are in the world of mathematics and drawing. He is able to draw scenes that he has glimpsed for only a moment, right down to their smallest detail. Bad news for the guy who killed his father while August watched in terror. And bad news for August when the bad guys realize this.But never mind! Lisbeth Salander is on the job. She connects with August because he reminds her of herself, and it turns out that they do have a lot in common. Salander is one of the good guys whose numerous tattoos and piercings cover a heart of gold and she will protect August come hell or Spiders.All in all, this was a worthy successor to Larsson. I wonder if there will be more?

The continuation of the Millennium series is a literary event of some moment, since it continues the career of Lisbeth Salander, one of the very special characters to emerge in the second golden age of crime fiction. Each of the three books in Stieg Larsson’s series is written in a different subgenre (locked-room [island] mystery, legal thriller, etc.). The Girl in the Spider’s Web is a technothriller. A genius studying artificial intelligence is murdered. His death is connected with an international plot between an American government agency and a private firm to profit from the acquisition of industrial secrets. Enter the Russian mob, the principal Swedish security agency, local investigators, Mikael Blomkvist, Lisbeth Salander and Lisbeth’s evil twin sister, Camilla. The last element takes us deeper and deeper into Lisbeth’s backstory and, in the process, adds a touch of the biblical/mythic. A further delineation of Lisbeth’s character comes when she finds herself in the position of guarding/mothering a young, autistic savant, the son of the murdered Swedish AI specialist. This is a very clever way of getting us into the brilliant, quirky mind of LS.Issues: the technothriller focusing on the nuances of computation, encryption and hacking entails risk. How do you make the story interesting enough to delight the digital generation without making it so complex that it results in tedium for others? The world of quantum computers and the factorization of prime numbers is fascinating, but a little of it goes a long way. There is also the question of pace. LS is such a fascinating character that I can understand the decision to keep her in abeyance as the plot develops. This helps build both suspense and anticipation and we are anxious to see her appear on the scene and electrify it by her very presence. She does not really appear in the novel until we are 50 pp. in. On the other hand, the conclusion is superb and she is well worth waiting for. Finally, there is the issue of atmospherics. The literal atmospherics—icy winds, swirling snow, chilled bones—are easy enough and they are done well, but how does one convey the ethos of Stockholm, etc. for those who have never been there or who know it very superficially? Lagercrantz’s technique is to enumerate every street for every character, every café, every corporate office, every encounter and every memory. Ultimately this seems to work, even though the reader may not have anything approaching a mental image of the street being described. It creates a sort of rhythm, like the names in apposition in Homeric epic (Achilles, breaker of horses, etc.), but it points up the difficulty of presenting a story set in a relatively small and relatively isolated place to a vast, international audience.Lagercrantz’s narrative is effective and polished (to the extent that I can judge it); the translation by George Goulding is certainly smooth and does not draw unnecessary attention to itself. The ‘English’ is international and does not succumb to the temptation to rely on awkward British or American idiomatic expressions.Finally, I enjoyed the novel very much. The new author makes excellent use of a brilliant set of core characters and is able to handle the technical details of the novel’s principal plot arcs with skill and authority. While it does not quite achieve the effects of Larsson’s work, that might be in part because Larsson entered the crime fiction scene with such drama and panache that Lagercrantz was forced to meet impossible expectations. The bottom line is that I would purchase the next novel in the series and look forward to reading it.

I was leary of this book because of it being written by a new author. I had read a review of it stating it wasn’t as good as the original three & frankly I’ve read other series continued by a new author that I thought weren’t nearly as good. This one, however, is even better than the original three, although now I’m going to reread those. Great book!

Enjoyed the book a lot. It is an easy read and takes the style of prior Millenium edition books. Hopping from persona to persona perspective while taking you further in the detective rollercoaster. Though, for me the book was missing the ah so usual vivid description of action be it torture, fights or sensual.However, I might be wrong, it has been long while since I have read the first three books.5/5 enjoyed every bit reading the Girl in the Spider's Web

Me parece que la trama se fue desarrollando a la perfeccion. Fue hilando los acontecimientos con destreza. Me encanto el final.

Te engancha desde el primer momento....!

I’m reading the book after watching the movie, as it occurred to me with the previous books. I must say, the work is very close to the egregious Larsson’s style, somehow respectful of the previous author’s address but also original in developing new situations and contexts. If you loved Larsson’s trilogy you’ll definitely love this as well