Author: David Langercrantz
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: violence, language, sexual content
I always figured that the story of Lisbeth Salander died with Stieg Larsson; that her three adventures with Mikael Blomkvist would be part of the body of Nordic crime fiction for time immemorial, but that she'd remain frozen in amber, without a neat resolution. So I was excited and a little dubious when I read that David Langercrantz had picked up and written The Girl in the Spider's Web, a new book in the Millennium series. In this book, Salander has her greatest challenge yet-- in the middle of a hack and a murder, she's charged with the care of the young, autistic child of a dead computer genius. Salander is famously socially challenged, and this book provides lots of opportunities for readers to see her grow.
In The Girl in the Spider's Web, Lagercrantz is able to continue with all of the action and all of the complications that Larsson put into place with the original three novels. I'd say that in some ways the books are even better. There was far less emphasis on minute details like IKEA furniture lines and the brands of convenience store food Salander was eating (you can't edit a dead guy, I guess). Lagercrantz also ensures that Salander's extremely dysfunctional family will continue to plague Norway for years to come. For those of you rooting for a Mikael/Lisbeth relationship-- there are possibilities for that storyline to continue as well, although, I for one, think the series would be better without that angle.
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