Tag: David Lagercrantz

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, by David Lagercrantz

This is another entertaining thriller from the author who took up the mantle of Stieg Larsson. It is again about Lisbeth Salander, the computer hacker, and Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist committed to social justice. In this case, it is about their tense confrontations with villains who claim they are legitimate scientists. These scientists have been conducting a study of twins, a study intended to prove how differently twins evolve when brought up in different environments. But Lisbeth and Michael learn it is also a study that cares little about the harmful effect of this study on the twins.

Since Lisbeth is a twin herself, and was brought up apart from her twin sister, this study interests her. Especially when she discovers the harm it has done to various twins, and the desperate efforts of the scientists to hide those harmful effects. However, when we encounter her, she is in prison for a fabricated crime that is not made clear. And the initial tension of the novel rises in that prison between a fellow prisoner, Faria Kazi, and another female prisoner, Benito. Faria belongs to an Islam family whose sons are zealously guarding the family “honor,” after their sister Faria falls in love with a boy outside their clan. And Faria, is in jail after her revenge against one brother who tried to preserve the family honor by ordering the death of her fiancé.

In other words, there are various stories going on here. One is about Lisbeth’s prison life and the evil Benito, a woman prisoner who runs the jail because of an ineffective, cowardly administration. Another is about Lisbeth’s former guardian, Holmer Palmgren who visits her with news of the twins study. And still another is about the Islam family and the conflict between their daughter and her brothers. Finally, considerable space is spent with two of the twins in the study, Leo Mannheimer and Dan Brody, both prodigies, one a financier and the other a musician. They live opposite lives, of wealth and poverty, and then discover each other and want to expose what has happened to them. Another is about a dying woman scientist, Rakel Greitz, who does not hesitate at murder in order to conceal the cruelty and illegality of the twins study. While still another story follows police inspector Jan Bublanski, whom Lisbeth and Mikael rely on to help them expose and arrest the villains.

Because she is in prison for much of the novel, Lisbeth does not dominate the action here, not as she has done so in past novels. Her partner in the series, Mikael plays a more significant role. A famous journalist, he is a defender of social justice, and he seeks to expose the study of twins for his magazine, Millennium. It is he and Bublanski who control the final action, but considerable time is spent, in the meantime, with the twins Leo and Dan as they seek to adjust to an incompatible world, then discover one another and maneuver desperately to survive the evil scientist, Grietz, who does not wish the study to be exposed. And who, moreover, enlists Faria’s family to help protect the secret. Which also results in Lisbeth being kidnapped. Thus is built the reader’s concern that Mikael and Bublanski thwart the villains, that Lisbeth be rescued, and that Faria and Dan be saved.

What also increases the suspense of this novel is a narrative technique employed by author Lagercrantz. Through much of the novel he constantly switches the action from one confrontation to another, or from one moment in time to another. The result is that we continually leave a crisis faced by one character and go to one faced by another. Thus he moves back and forth from Lisbeth to Benito to Faria Kazi, or from Dan Brody to Leo to Greitz, or from Mikael to Bubanski to Lisbeth. For some critics, this switching of viewpoints is too much, but for me it does work to heighten the novel’s suspense.

One drawback to this novel that critics have cited is that there is too much going on. There are too many plots: the prison violence, the murders involving the twins study, one in the past and one in the present, the turmoil in the Moslem family, the kidnapping of Lisbeth, and the back story of Leo and Dan, also both in the past and in the present. And that as a result the novel has no textual depth. There is certainly a legitimacy to this complaint. But what these various plots do is keep the narrative moving and intensify the suspense up and .

But my major complaint is that the novel ends too neatly. There is a final dramatic confrontation or two, but the good guys win and the bad guys lose somewhat matter-of-factly. There are no dramatic revelations, no unexpected ironies, no changes in the reader’s understanding of the characters or their motivation. There is no punch at the end.

Another matter I did not grasp was the title. Not that any title in this series could not be exchanged with one of the others. All present Lisbeth as the main protagonist. But the revenge suggested by this title is not evident, and Lisbeth certainly does not play the prominent role that she does in the other novels.

I will be interested in more adventures of Lisbeth and Mikael as they appear in further novels by Lagercrantz. But, in retrospect, I do agree with the critics above, and I would hope this new author concentrates on a more simple line of action, rather then the complexity he offers here. So that he can probe more deeply into either his characters or into those matters of social and political justice that Mikael writes about. And that so fascinated Larsson in his original novels. (September, 2018)

The Girl in the Spider’s Web, by David Lagercrantz

This 2015 work is a remarkable continuation of the three thrillers of Stieg Larsson that feature Lisbeth Salander, the punkish computer whiz, and Mikael Blomkvist, the crusading journalist. It is brilliant because it includes a fascinating victim, a helpless and endangered child, and rapid-fire pacing that keep shifting its point of view, each time leaving the reader in a moment of suspense but immediately picking up a new scene and a different character confronting equal suspense.

It also includes a complex, not completely believable, solution that involves the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Swedish security police, Russian spies, and international crooks. And oh, yes, there is a maguffin: how close are certain characters to the development of an artificial intelligence superior to human intelligence?

A few old friends return besides Salander and Blomkvist. They include, in prominent roles, Salander’s remaining family; Blomkvist’s lover, Erika Berger; and police inspector Jan Bublanski. The other major characters are the scientist, Franz Balder; his former wife, Hanna Balder, the boy’s mother; the boy himself, August Balder, who is autistic; Ed Needham, NSA’s chief of security; and the villains.

The story begins with a father and son reacquaintance in Sweden and, across the pond, a stealthy invasion of NSA’s most profound computer secrets. Is the latter linked to Balder’s mysterious switch of loyalties as he researches the limits of artificial intelligence? This is followed by a sudden and unexpected death, to which the boy is a witness.

The novel’s main action then revolves around preserving the boy’s safety, since he was a witness to the murder; and the suspense arises out of the various attempts to kill him before he can use his photographic memory and his drawing skills to create an image of the killer. But there is also additional suspense because he is a mathematical genius, and his skill with numbers may help resolve the NSA computer break-in, by whom it was done, and why.

There is also a brilliant femme fatale who is behind the murder but before she appears we get to know the actual killers and follow their efforts to kill the boy, as well as the police’s efforts to find the killers and discover where the boy is. Despite her limited role here, one suspects this woman will be a key player if there are future novels in this series.

While Blomkvist and Salander are involved in this adventure—he having been approached by the scientist and then wanting to protect the boy, and she being determined both to find out how the NSA computer was hacked and to protect the boy—they do not dominate this novel, nor even control much of the action. Author Lagercrantz has not tied himself to these two heroes, but has let his imagination create a dramatic situation in which they are certainly involved but in which their own lives are not at the heart of the situation, as they were in Larsson’s original Millennium series.

But as in Larsson’s work, Lagercrantz here is interested in the corruption at the higher levels of government. In this case, the NSA is his main culprit, which is certainly topical. For it is using its computer research power to eavesdrop on communications throughout the world, especially those made by other governments and wealthy capitalists. But the author also suggests, less convincingly, that the NSA is working here with foreign governments and gangsters. It makes for fascinating reading, but it fails to convince.

What is new is the scientific emphasis in this series, especially the mathematical computations by August, at Salander’s instigation. Salander is still a computer genius, as in earlier novels, but here she focuses on August’s latent skills, employing them as well as her own computer skills. And it is not in behalf of herself but to explore the possibility of artificial intelligence and what is happening at NSA. She is using her genius in the search for justice—except not justice for herself, but justice for others.

More convincingly related to the novel’s exploration of the digital world, as well as to this search for justice, is the photographic and mathematical genius of eight-year old August, who is both autistic and traumatized. His situation captures his vulnerability as a person who cannot express himself, and makes him a key to the novel’s resolution. In many ways, he is the character most alive in this novel, certainly the one the reader most closely roots for.

To sum up, I am certainly interested in more works in this series by Lagercrantz. The non-stop action is what makes this interpretation of Larsson’s basic themes so effective, and it is heightened by the suspense in each scene. I would also anticipate a closer exploration of Salander’s personal story, the groundwork for which has been laid here with the presence of the mysterious and beautiful female mastermind.

From Blomkvist, I would hope for an exploration of malfeasance within Sweden in subsequent novels, whether at the corporate, government, or legal level, rather than more international intrigue. This is what gave the original substance to this series, and Lagercrantz’s being a Swedish journalist as well as a novelist surely provides him with the background to do this.

Finally, I would note that while I looked forward to reading this Millennium novel by a new author, I have felt different about reading the new Spenser novels commissioned by the estate of Robert B. Parker after Parker’s death. Is this simply because Parker lived a full creative life, while Larsson’s life was cut short before he could fully explore his characters? I suspect this is the case, especially since Parker at the end was following a formula more than exploring new ground. Whereas, there is much new ground to be explored here in terms of the corruption in Swedish society. (February, 2016)