Shelf Life

Tag: Lisbeth Salander

  • The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons

    The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons

    “Smirnoff, who lives in Sweden, has done an excellent job, one that should reassure Larsson’s fans that the series is in good hands.”

    Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant computer hacker who is both reclusive and aggressive, is back in The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons, the seventh in the Millennium series. The first three of this series of Swedish crime novels starting with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were written by the late Steig Larsson. After his death, the next three were the work of David Lagercrantz and now, the first woman—Karin Smirnhoff—has taken over the franchise.

    Now the part-owner of an internet security company, Salander still finds refuge in numbers, which to her are so much more trustworthy and manageable than people.

    “Decoding the human factor is not like identifying a data breach,” writes Smirnoff in a description of Salander’s personality style. “It requires something different. The ability to read between the lines, perhaps. With very few exceptions, relationships with other people take too much energy. Most people who give want something in return.”

    That’s why the choice of Salander to become guardian for Svala, her genius 13-year-old niece, is problematic to say the least. Add to that, Svala is dealing with a host of crises that would negatively impact even a stable adult let alone a young girl with a dead father and a missing mother whose drug-dealing stepfather is hunting for her to take advantage of her outstanding mathematical capabilities.

    In other words, Svala has a host of complicated issues impacting her life. And it’s up to Salander, who can barely take care of herself, to keep Svala safe. Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist who has partnered with Salander to solve crimes in the past, is dealing with his own significant life changes. His daughter is about to marry a man whose grandiosity and desire to earn vast sums of money has led him into an alliance with shady characters. He’s also jobless as Millennium, the investigative newsmagazine where he’s worked for decades, has folded.

    Carrying on a series after the death of the original author is difficult. But Smirnoff, whose previous novels have sold over seven hundred thousand copies, captures the essence of Larsson’s characters who are complex and flawed but real and likeable as well. The book, translated by Sarah Death, moves quickly, and though at times the substantial number of characters may be somewhat difficult to keep track of, there is a list at the beginning of the book to refer to if needed.

    In all, Smirnoff, who lives in Sweden, has done an excellent job, one that should reassure Larsson’s fans that the series is in good hands.

    This review originally appeared in the New York Journal of Books.

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  • The Girl Who Died Twice

    The Girl Who Died Twice

              Never one to hide her feelings, Lisbeth Salander is angry and back for vengeance in the sixth novel of the series that started with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

              Abused by both her mobster father as well as the psychiatrist treating her, Lisbeth is an avenging angel of sorts—determined to punish evil and the powerful people who prey on others. Her doppelganger is her own twin sister Camilla.

    © 2019 Fotograf Anna-Lena Ahlström

              “The sisters chose different sides,” says author David Lagercrantz, discussing the plot of The Girl Who Lived Twice in a phone call from Stockholm, Sweden where he lives. “Camilla chose the strength—her father and Lisbeth chose taking care of the weak—protecting her mother from her father’s violence. The sisters are bitter enemies, and this is their final battle.”

              Though social skills aren’t one of Salander’s strong suits—she likely falls on the autism spectrum, she does have the ability to hack through the fire walls of almost any computer system.  Add to that her martial arts abilities and photographic memory and she makes a worthy adversary of her equally brilliant but pathological sister.

              Lagercrantz, who is embarking on a two month worldwide tour, took over writing the Salander series after the death of Steig Larsson, author of the original three novels.

              “I was scared to death to death when they asked me to do this,” says Lagercrantz, noting he was smuggled into a side door of the publishing house to avoid speculation he was being selected to write the best selling thrillers. “It was a suicidal mission in many ways to agree to do it because people loved his books so much. But it’s been fantastic.”

              Like Larsson, Lagercrantz’s Salander novels are complex, leading Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, the crusading journalist who befriended her, into a dark world of scheming crooks, billionaires and corrupt politicians. The latter includes the Minister of Defense, the only survivor of a Mount Everest climbing expedition who may be involved in the murder of a homeless Nepalese Sherpa.

              Lagercrantz says The Girl Who Lived Twice will be his final book in the series.

              “They’d like me to write ten or more, but I want to move on to my own fiction,” he says. “It was a bittersweet decision.”

              In an intriguing aside, Lagercrantz lives in the same neighborhood as the fictional Blomkvist and Salander.

              “When I’m walking, I sometime wonder if I’ll run into them,” he says.

              What would he say if he did?

              “That would be interesting, wouldn’t it?” he says.