#8: The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

A crusading journalist at a failing magazine lucks into a hot story involving the murder of a computer genius; at the same time, a famous hacker (and his sometimes lover) decides to get involved in the mystery as well in The Girl in the Spider's Web, a continuation of the Millennium Series.

The series, which began with Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, seemed to open the floodgates for interest in Scandinavian mysteries and crime stories.  Unfortunately Larsson died abruptly after completing only three novels, and in his wake was quite a bit of controversy about writing he left behind as well as his estate in general.

I decided I would read Lagercrantz's novel on its own merits, outside of the controversy.  I actually found this to be a largely seamless transition to a new author, capturing Larsson's knack for earthy storytelling and larger-than-life villains. 

Blomkvist and Salander have a more cerebral adventure this time out, dealing quite a bit with Artificial Intelligence and Autism and political maneuverings, peppered with action.  Lagercrantz definitely left elbow room for another book, if this one goes over well, and I hope it does.

I listened to a very good audiobook version of this novel on loan from the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#36: The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

A handful of murders have an antisocial hacker in common, leading her to try her clear her name even as the noose tightens in Stieg Larsson's second Swedish thriller, The Girl Who Played With Fire, published posthumously.
His first novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, was one of my favorite reads of this year, and the follow-up is not far behind. Those who enjoyed the first one will find a richer experience with the backstories of the characters in the second, but it can also more or less stand alone.
I chew through a lot of mysteries and thrillers, as loyal readers here have observed, and enjoy changing it up with Scandinavian mystery authors now and then, an increasingly popular genre in the U.S. Their storytelling has a tendency to be less linear and more ruminative, with shifting points of view. This novel is big and chunky at more than 500 pages, but reads at a good clip and is translated in a straightforward style.
I had the great fortune to be sent a copy of this novel to give away during Knopf's "Tattoo You" contest, but naturally read it before declaring the winner.

A Slight Digression for Stieg Larsson

I am soon to be wrapping up my The Girl Who Played With Fire contest, over at my other blog, but there is still time to enter. Astoundingly, Knopf asked me to be one of 250 bloggers across this great nation to give away a copy of Stieg Larsson's latest thriller. However, they didn't mention that I couldn't read it first, so the contest ends when I get done. And I read quite a bit last night. And, by the way, it's good. More soon to be written about it here.

#2: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

A crusading financial journalist has a fall from grace and finds himself writing the biography of an industrial magnate on a remote island.  The magnate's true motives are soon revealed, and the journalist ends up (with the help of the anti-social hacker of the title) looking into the decades-old unsolved murder of a teenage girl.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a bracing, original debut novel by Stieg Larsson, who I was sorry to learn passed away shortly after completing what is called "The Millennium Trilogy," of which this is the first volume.  Reading a lot of mysteries, I have recently come to appreciate the philosophical differences of the incredibly popular mystery novels of Sweden and Norway; though this one comes with a number of American-style shocks.  

I felt The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo compared very favorably with another Scandinavian bestseller, Jo Nesbo's The Redbreast, one of the best reads I enjoyed last year.  Larsson's novel is an early front-runner for my favorite novel of 2009.

I checked this one out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.