The Girl Who Lived Twice is the sixth book in the Millennium saga, originally started by Stieg Larsson and continued by David Lagercrantz. This was the last book by Lagercrantz.
In some ways this book picks up where the last one left off, with Lisbeth Salander looking to find her twin sister, Camilla, who is the head of an international crime syndicate. Mikael Blomkvist is once again in a creative slump because nothing interesting is happening – until a man turns up dead under suspicious circumstances with Blomkvist’s phone number in his pocket.
With Salander’s help, as well as another the help of another journalist named Catrin Lindas, Blomkvist begins to unravel the tangled nest of wires that connects an Everest guide to the Swedish Minister of Defense, and Salander continues to chase her sister, first to Russia and then back to Sweden, ultimately cornering Camilla when Camilla goes after Blomkvist.
I can’t say I didn’t enjoy this book – it was decent enough and I liked it. Salander and Blomkvist are still a dynamic pair and Salander is still fascinating, but the stories themselves are becoming less compelling with time. I loved The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo when I first read it back in 2012(ish). Since then, the stories have gone downhill. I couldn’t say why. There was less violence in this book than the previous couple, but that is not a sticking point for me. I disliked how gory the books had become. Maybe I just don’t like Lagercrantz’s stories as much as Larsson’s. Either way, when I read/listened to this book, I was pretty glad that this was the end of the series. At the time, it was the end of the series.
But the publishing company has contracted another trilogy with Swedish writer Karin Smirnoff. The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons will be released in the English translation on August 29, 2023. I am, of course, going to read/listen to it. Hopefully, Smirnoff will be able to capture some of Larsson’s original magic.
Tag Archives: authors: david lagercrantz
The Girl Who Lived Twice
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye
The latest book in the Lisbeth Salander series is the second by David Lagercrantz and was not my favorite. My favorite remains the first story, but I’m starting to worry that we’re going to see a sharp drop in quality the farther out we get from Stieg Larsson’s death.
We do learn some interesting information about Lisbeth’s past, and we do watch her (from prison for her activities in the previous book) and Mikael Blomkvist solve a mystery and a crime.
There are basically two stories going on. One is about Lisbeth and the system she was brought up in after her abuse. This involves a complex social project called “The Registry” which sounded super sketchy and had something to do with separating gifted twins. Lisbeth and Blomkvist figure out that a wealthy businessman Leo Manneheimer is not actually Leo Manheimmer and the story that entails.
The other story is about a prisoner Lisbeth is trying to protect from another violent prisoner. Lisbeth is convinced the prisoner she is protecting doesn’t belong in prison, and there’s a mystery being solved there as well.
It was entertaining enough. It just wasn’t as good the previous installments.
The pacing was off, compared to previous novels, and Salander wasn’t actually in a lot of the book. Plus she was in prison a lot of the time. Langercrantz spent a lot of time on characters he created for the book, which I guess is ok, but not really why I read them.
I hope the next installment is better.
The Girl in the Spider’s Web
I started Steig Larsson’s Millenium trilogy back when it was still a trilogy but after Larsson was already dead, and I read all of them in a total of about a month in college? Or just after college?
Anyway, I really enjoyed them.
So when I saw that Larsson’s work was being continued under a different author, this time David Lagercrantz, I was really excited.
I immensely enjoyed The Girl in the Spider’s Web, although not as much as any of the original novels and I think that is because Lagercrantz supposedly went out of his way to humanize Lisbeth and Mikael, and while that was ok, I preferred their more fantastic versions. They’re like regular people who are also superheroes!
Anyway, there were some really cool elements to this, including that we get to meet Lisbeth’s estranged twin sister, Camilla. Camilla is…interesting. Without giving away too many details, I hope to find out in the future why Camilla is…the way she is, and why she dislikes her sister so much.
The story also features an NSA officer, an idiot-savant child, a murder, and the usual tech aspect of the story that may not be devastatingly realistic but adds excitement to the story anyway. I don’t really read works of fiction (or watch fictional films, for that matter) for their strict adherence to reality, so the tech stuff that isn’t necessarily real? No big deal for me.
Lisbeth naturally bonds with the child, she having limited social skills herself. When his father is no longer able to care for him, she brings him safely to his mother…who is being abused by her new significant other and, IIRC, gets rid of him.
In spite of mellowed out Lisbeth and Mikael, the novel moved at a good pace and there was enough going on to keep me turning pages. Well, I originally started listening on audiobook at work, but owned the novel at home and hadn’t gotten the chance to read it yet, and finished it at home on paper because I was so into it.
Also exciting about this book: a renewed friendship between Lisbeth and Mikael! This was my absolute favorite part. I always liked their dynamic.
Like I said, I really enjoyed the book. I can’t wait to read and/or listen to the next one, that came out a few months back. I love Lisbeth, even “mellow” Lisbeth, so as long as she keeps appearing in novels, I’ll probably keep reading them.
words in scarlet ink 