'The Girl in the Spider's Web' will be published on September 1 with the storyline including National Security Agency and Silicon Valley.
- Apr 1, 2015
AceShowbiz - A new book from Stieg Larsson's Millennium series about a tattooed computer hacker Lisbeth Salander is announced. Titled "The Girl in the Spider's Web", it will be made available for purchase in the United States starting September 1 this year.
It will be the fourth book, following "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", "The Girl Who Played with Fire", and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest". However, it's the first one not written by Larsson who died of a heart attack in 2004 at 50.
Swedish author and former crime journalist David Lagercrantz has been tapped by the Larsson estate to continue the saga. It will follow Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist with National Security Agency and Silicon Valley added to the mix.
"One night professor Frans Balder, a leading authority within AI (artificial intelligence) research, calls up Blomkvist," Sweden publishing house Norstedts posted a sneak peek online. "Balder says he has world shattering information on U.S. intelligence services ... had contact with a female super hacker, who bears a certain resemblance to a person Blomkvist knows well."
The book faces backlash from Larsson's partner Eva Gabrielsson. "They say heroes are supposed to live forever. That's a load of crap, this is about money," she told AFP. "It's about a publishing house that needs money, (and) a writer who doesn't have anything to write so he copies someone else."
She said Lagercrantz had nothing in common with Larsson. He "comes from a completely different background. Everything has always been easy for him. He's never been an activist. Everything is wrong," she lamented. "Let him dig his own grave."
The original author had allegedly started working on a fourth novel when he died, but the publisher didn't have access to the partially-completed story so they started fresh. While Gabrielsson was unwilling to discuss the draft, John-Henri Holmberg, who translated one of Larsson's early short stories, once said Larsson had written the ending to the story and intended to "go back and start the story from the beginning."
The first three books have sold over 80 million copies across the globe. The debut novel was adapted for the big screen twice. the 2009 Swedish film starring Noomi Rapace and the 2011 Hollywood remake starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig.
