Lisbeth Salander returns in the 8th book in the Millennium series, continuing Stieg Larson’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo novels.

When Lisbeth sends her niece in Gasskas, in Swedens far north, a drone for Christmas, she sets off a chain of events as Salva finds out about secret mining operations and an old enemy raises its head. Meanwhile, an old hacker friend Plague, with links to the town, has gone missing, and Lisbeth decides to take Michael Blomquist with her, and go take care of business as only she knows how. 

As mentioned above, this is a series that’s being continued by different authors. Steig Larson wrote the first three books, which were internationally successful and adapted for the screen and TV. He died before all of them were published, so an author, David Lagercrantz, was tasked with continuing them and wrote three more. Now Karin Smirnoff has written the last two and based on this novel, I think she’s writing a trilogy too. (The Smirnoff volumes are translated by Sarah Death, which is a wonderful name) I’m in two minds about other authors continuing another authors work or series. It can feel like a soulless cash-in, if it’s not done well, though there are cases where it works. 

This book, as mentioned, is the author’s second in the series. There is a list of characters in the front which helps you orient yourself, if you read the previous book a while ago and need a refresher. I think it may be an attempt to aid readers who didn’t read the previous novel, which is my way of bringing up that this books’ events and characters lead on from the previous, and you may be a bit lost if you haven’t read that, or won’t feel the same impact.

The book reads like a typical thriller. Airplane book style, and perhaps trying to emulate Larson’s original writing style. I’m not sure. It has some darker and sexual themes, which won’t surprise anyone, I think, since that was an element of the early books, too.

On the whole, it feels like it’s trying to be a bit edgy, with its dark themes, its hackers and environmental concerns, the CEOs being bad guys, paedophile criminal king pins. It’s quite well paced, which I always appreciate in a thriller, and leads to a big conclusion nicely. There is a little too much plot and a few too many characters to keep track of at times, meaning it’s a little overstuffed.

Blomkvist and Lisbeth herself appear in the story a little less than they could, with the niece Svala having a lot of page real estate. I think this might be so that she can inherit the mantle of her aunt, especially as she’s some kind of child prodigy with numbers and ability to survive. We spend more time with her than Lisbeth in this book, so she’s more like the main character, really.

The book has its flaws, but a lot of that is no worse than other contemporary thrillers that I’ve read. I was entertained enough. I’m not sure if this book really justified continuing the series, but it is bleak, cynical and edgy, just like it’s heroine, Lisbeth Salander.

Read It If: one for fans of Salander who have been keeping up with her adventures. If you liked the previous entry in the series, you should enjoy this one. Might be confusing if you read it as a standalone.

Thank you to Penguin Books for the copy of this books for review.