The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
Fans of Stieg Larsson's captivating odd couple of modern detective fiction…will not be disappointed by the latest installment of their adventures…Salander and Blomkvist have survived the authorship transition intact and are just as compelling as ever…Mr. Lagercrantz demonstrates an instinctive feel for the world Larsson created and for his two unconventional gumshoes…Mr. Lagercrantz captures the weariness, even vulnerability, that lurks beneath these two characters' toughness, and he understands that each is motivated by a craving for justice…Mr. Lagercrantz seems to have set about—quite nimbly, for the most part—channeling Larsson's narrative style, mixing genre clichés with fresh, reportorial details, and plot twists reminiscent of sequences from Larsson's novels with energetically researched descriptions of the wild, wild West that is the dark side of the Internet.
Publishers Weekly
★ 08/31/2015
Lagercrantz's worthy, crowd-pleasing fourth installment in the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium saga opens in Sweden, where some intellectual property developed by artificial intelligence genius Frans Balder has been stolen by a video game company with ties to Russian mobsters. Crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who's casting about for a new investigative project, is about to meet with Balder when an intruder kills the scientist and puts Balder's autistic eight-year-old son in danger. Meanwhile in the U.S., the National Security Agency is hacked, and its chief of security, Edwin Needham, vows revenge. Lisbeth Salander plays a central role in both plot lines, and the pleasure resides in watching Lagercrantz (Fall of Man in Wilmslow) corral an enormous cast of characters into an intricate story revolving around the larger-than-life hacker and her desire to right wrongs, including corporate espionage, a government spying on its own citizens, and violence against the defenseless. Two new characters make strong impressions: Jan Bublanski, a Stockholm detective with a humanistic bent, and Camilla Salander, Lisbeth's twin, who sets the stage for further Millennium novels. Lagercrantz, his prose more assured than Larsson's, keeps Salander's fiery rage at the white-hot level her fans will want. Agent: Magdalena Hedlund, Norstedts Agency (Sweden). (Sept.)
Publishers Weekly - Audio
10/26/2015
With Lagercrantz’s prose acceptably miming the late Stieg Larsson, and Vance once again lending his rich, clipped British narration to the dynamic adventures of antisocial ultrahacker Lisbeth Salander and altruist reporter Mikael Blomkvist, the Sweden-set Millennium series continues almost seamlessly. This book finds Bloomkvist searching for a rejuvenating new project when he hears about an artificial intelligence genius named Balder whose latest creation has been stolen by Russian cybercriminals. Before he can talk to Balder, the man is murdered, and his autistic child, a witness to the crime, is placed in the care of a vile guardian. Salander steps in, vowing to right all wrongs. Vance doesn’t just add a throaty quality to Bloomkvist’s voice; there’s also weariness and despair, both of which fade as the plot quickens. Salander speaks in a harsh staccato, underlined by impatience and an inability to compromise. Vance’s presentation of the other characters is just as spot-on, including a gruff but understanding detective named Bublanski and an NSA superhacker named Needham, who admires Salander as much as he despises her. Every aspect of the novel benefits from Vance’s vocal timbre. A Knopf hardcover. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Rest easy, Lisbeth Salander fans—our punk hacker heroine is in good hands. . . . A twisty, bloody thrill ride . . . . An instant page-turner.” —USA Today (4 out of 4 stars)
“Excellent. . . . Anyone craving more Salander bad-assery should get their hands on a copy of Spider’s Web faster than Lisbeth can hack into the NSA.” —People
“Salander and Blomkvist are just as compelling as ever. . . . Fans of Stieg Larsson’s captivating odd couple of modern detective fiction will not be disappointed.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Riveting. . . . Pyrotechnic. . . . An intelligent novel that has Salander entangled in one of the most contentious issues of our times.” —Chicago Tribune
“The Girl in the Spider’s Web is masterful. . . . Intricate and ambitious. . . . Salander is an extraordinary heroine whose hacker skills are more relevant than ever in an increasingly high-tech surveillance society.” —The Atlantic
“Lagercrantz has more than met the challenge. Larsson’s brainchildren are in good hands and may have even come up a bit in the world.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Lagercrantz’s real achievement here is the subtle development of Lisbeth’s character; he allows us access to her complex, alienated world but is careful not to remove her mystery and unknowability. Lisbeth Salander remains, in Lagercrantz’s hands, the most enigmatic and fascinating anti-heroine in fiction.” —Financial Times
“A thrillingly layered book every bit as addictive as the originals.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
“[A] worthy, crowd-pleasing fourth installment. . . . Lagercrantz, his prose more assured than Larsson’s, keeps Salander’s fiery rage at the white-hot level her fans will want.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[A] smart, action-packed thriller that is true to the spirit of the characters Larsson created while adding interesting new ones and updating the political backdrop that made the Millennium series so compelling.” —The Buffalo News
“This whirlwind of nonstop action and intrigue is compulsively readable to the electrifying end.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Fans of the original trilogy will be pleased with [Lagercrantz’s] new installment. The novel is a smart, propulsive thriller and espionage tale with a timely digital age plot (think Snowden and Wikileaks).” —The Hollywood Reporter
“Engrossing. . . . In spinning a complex and intriguing new chapter in the adventures of Blomkvist and Salander, Lagercrantz has written a worthy successor to one of the more uniquely compelling thriller sagas of his generation.” —Paste
“Lagercrantz pulls it off, and with a great deal of style. . . . Elegantly paced, slickly executed, and properly thrilling. . . . A welcome treat.” —The Guardian
“Passion and fire, check: there are plenty of both here. . . . Fast-moving, credible, and intelligently told. Larsson fans won’t be disappointed.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Action-packed and thoroughly enjoyable. . . . [A] finely-wrought thriller. . . . I will eagerly devour the next adventure for Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, especially now that we know their fate lies in the hands of a writer worthy of their story.” —William O’Connor, The Daily Beast
Library Journal
04/15/2015
Swedish journalist and best-selling author Lagercrantz hit the jackpot when Stieg Larsson's estate asked him to write this stand-alone sequel to the famed "Millennium" trilogy. As the estate says, "David is an accomplished author, who has throughout his authorship narrated highly original characters and complex geniuses. He will conduct this in his very own way." With a 500,000-copy first printing.
OCTOBER 2015 - AudioFile
It's a good thing the plot of this audiobook is so compelling because characters, streets, and cities with unpronounceable 18-letter names are a bit tough to remember. British narrator Simon Vance makes the thriller enjoyable, helping English-speaking listeners get through the tongue-twisting Swedish place names. He also adds personality to the characters in this sequel to THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, which helps listeners keep the large cast straight. Once again, genius computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and old-school reporter Mikael Blomkvist team up—this time to rescue an autistic young boy who may be the key to solving the murder of his father. M.S. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2015-09-01
Lisbeth Sander returns, bruises raw and dander up, in this continuing installment of the late Stieg Larsson's crime series. Lisbeth is perhaps getting a little long in the tooth to be called a girl, but no matter: she still has a young person's aching desire to right the wrongs of the world. There are plenty of them, no doubt, but Swedish journalist/biographer Lagercrantz gives this the timeliest of spins by centering evil on the National Security Agency and its villainous operatives ("Ingram usually had a malicious grin on his face when he stuck a knife in someone's back"), who dig illicit sex and snappy repartee and all the usual things that bad guys enjoy. The NSA and its explosive chief data cowboy make perfect foils, as it happens, for Lisbeth and her cohort of hacking pals, bearing names like Trinity, Plague, and Bob the Dog. Lagercrantz follows the Larsson formula: take a more-or-less ordinary event, in this case a brittle battle over custody rights, and wrap it into a larger crime that the smaller one masks. It's not as if he doesn't skip a beat in doing so, but mostly he captures Larsson's patented tone, a blend of journalistic matter-of-factness and world-weariness. If the bad guys are sometimes cardboard cutouts, Lisbeth is fully rounded in her fury—as one of them cries, "What kind of freak are you?" No ordinary one, as Larsson well established and Lagercrantz reinforces. Larsson's journalist hero/alter ego Mikael Blomkvist returns as well, bound in events while trying to do his work in the face of disappearing print, focus groups, and consultants—the latter a force for evil as formidable as the spooks back at Fort Meade. "It was no bloody market analysis that had created the magazine," he fumes. "It was passion and fire." Passion and fire, check: there are plenty of both here and plenty of loose character-development ends to pick up in another sequel. Fast-moving, credible, and intelligently told. Larsson fans won't be disappointed.
