The Girl in the Spiders Web

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This a tricky one to rate. I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and loved Lisbeth Salandar and Mikael Blomkvist. Larsson was able to bring a real depth and humanity to the characters and an urgent readability to a mystery largely solved by paperwork, computers, and pictures. However, I couldn't get past the sexual violence and so didn't continue on with the series. With a new author, I was hoping that we could get back to Blomkivst and Salander without the sexual violence. Which Lagercrantz did, but Blomkivist and Salander weren't the same. I didn't have trouble jumping in without reading the other two books, and it is a good detective story. There is a lot of action, hit men, spying, an autistic savant boy that witnesses a murder, artificial intelligences, drama at the magazine, etc., but the book lacked the propulsion I felt with the first book. There are a lot of characters and I felt like Mikael got lost in the midst of them. Salander on the other hand, became something of a pierced, skinny Batman, with almost superhuman powers, so that she became less human and more of an enigma. If I were to review it as just a thriller, I would say it is a good solid one, with interesting plot lines and moving action. But as part of the Millenial series, I'd have to admit it didn't measure up.


View all my reviews