David Lagercrantz - The Girl Who Takes an Eye for An Eye

Fans of Stieg Larssons captivating odd couple of modern detective fiction the genius punk hacker Lisbeth Salander and her sometime partner, the crusading investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist will not be disappointed by the latest instalment of their adventures, written not by their creator, Stieg Larsson (who died of a heart attack at the age of 50 in 2004), but by a Swedish journalist and author named David Lagercrantz Salander and Blomkvist have survived the authorship transition intact and are just as compelling as ever

MICHIKO KAKUTANI , New York Times

Larsson died before his wildly popular The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo came out, but the publisher chose wisely in tapping David Lagercrantz to continue the series with The Girl in the Spiders Web. Not only do the matter-of-fact style and intricate plotting and sexy, chilling atmosphere feel very true to the original novels, but Lagercrantz transcends the source material. Hes the better writer. He worked as a crime reporter and knows our journalist protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, and Swedens troubles well. In this version: A brilliant scientist is murdered. Corporate and government websites are compromised. Cybercriminals lurk in the sordid corners of the night and the Internet. And a severely autistic savant might hold the key to a mystery. Its a dark, thrilling novel that channels our very real digital vulnerabilities as people, businesses and nations

BENJAMIN PERCY , Esquire

One devours Larssons books for the plots, the action, the anger, and most of all for Lisbeth Salander, a character who resembles Sherlock Holmes or James Bond in being so powerful because she is a brilliantly realised myth rather than a psychologically convincing character study. Lagercrantz has caught her superbly, and expertly spun the sort of melodramatic yarn in which she can thrive

JAKE KERRIDGE , Daily Telegraph

Last seen vanquishing her half-brother by punching nails through his feet, Lisbeth Salander, the heroine of Stieg Larssons Millennium Trilogy, is making a comeback but now with a new author. Since the posthumous publication [in Sweden] of the first book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2005, sales of Larssons Millennium Trilogy have exceeded 80m copies. Now David Lagercrantz has stepped into the original creators shoes to bring the tattooed, vengeful hacker Lisbeth back to life Mr Lagercrantz displays an innate understanding of the world Mr Larsson created, and has stayed true to the characters of Salander and Blomkvist, who remain impervious to authorial change

Economist

A skilled novelist in his own right his books include Fall of Man in Wilmslow, about the tragic British computer pioneer Alan Turing Lagercrantz has constructed an elegant plot around different concepts of intelligence Lagercrantzs continuation, while never formulaic, is a cleaner and tighter read than the originals, although he follows the template in building the plot slowly and methodically. He is, technically, a more adept novelist than Larsson, smoothly switching viewpoint in two sections where characters come under threat from assassins. Without ever becoming pastiche, the book is a respectful and affectionate homage to the originals

MARK LAWSON , Guardian

Mr Lagercrantz definitely shares Larssons love of Lisbeth Salander, the punkish, tatted waif and hacker whose chief talent is to remind us that revenge is a dish best served piping hot. He keeps her offstage for the opening chapters, but when the dragoness enters the story she speeds it up nicely But the novels overarching evil is greed. A Swedish security cop shudders at the creeping realization that we live in a twisted world where everything, both big and small, is subject to surveillance, and where anything worth money will always be exploited. This kind of pronouncement is very much in the Stieg Larsson spirit: The rich and powerful are different they have more money and fewer scruples and need to be knocked into shape by righteous journalists and fearless waifs

DAVID SHIFLETT , Wall Street Journal

First, the conclusion. David Lagercrantz has done well. He was set an almost impossible task by Stieg Larssons estate when they asked him to write a continuation novel featuring Lisbeth Salander. He has carried it out with intelligence and vigour. The Girl in the Spiders Web conveys the essence and atmosphere of Larssons Millennium novels. He has captured the spirit of their characters and devised inventive plots On the evidence of Spiders Web, most Millennium fans will want to continue following their Lisbeth

MARCEL BERLINS , The Times

The plotting is similar to Larssons. There is a slow burn, punctuated by bursts of action before a page-turning finale. However, the book never strays into the dark descriptions of violence that punctuate the originals Lagercrantz could not have fulfilled the commission any more efficiently. The novel leaves much to be said between Salander and Blomkvist and so surely increases the chances of the sequence continuing on towards the ten books that Larsson is said to have originally imagined

NICK CLARK , Independent

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest

The Girl in the Spiders Web

I am Zlatan Ibrahimovi

Fall of Man in Wilmslow

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

MacLehose Press

An imprint of Quercus Publishing Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK company

Mannen som skte sin skugga David Lagercrantz & Moggliden AB, first published by Norstedts, Sweden, in 2017

Published by agreement with Norstedts Agency

English translation copyright 2017 by George Goulding

Maps Emily Faccini

The moral right of David Lagercrantz to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

George Goulding asserts his moral right to be identified as the translator of the work

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN (HB) 978 0 85705 640 5

ISBN (TPB) 978 0 85705 642 9

ISBN (E-BOOK) 978 0 85705 644 3

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the authors imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental

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