Book #7 in the Lisbeth Salander series was published in English 2023.

The 3rd author will be Karin Smirnoff.

I do feel she’s better than either the original — Stieg Larsson — or books 4,5, and 6 David Lagercrantz … BUT this book suffers from many of the same flaws as the first six.

Firstly, not enough Salander. That’s why I’m here. WHY does she appear so late in this book?

Why does she not do more hacking?

David Denby of The New Yorker stated that the character of Lisbeth Salander clearly accounts for a large part of the novels’ success.^[17] 

Deirdre Donahue of USA Today referred to Salander as “one of the most startling, engaging and sometimes perplexing heroines in recent memory.”^[18]

The New York Times‘s David Kamp called her “one of the most original characters in a thriller to come along in a while.”^[19] 

Likewise, Muriel Dobbin from The Washington Times dubbed her one of the most fascinating characters to emerge in crime fiction in years; “Her remoteness and her capacity for anger and violence are in contrast with a desperate vulnerability that she reveals only to the most unlikely of people.”^[20]

By coincidence, both Salander and Mikael Blomkvist end up in Sweden’s far north.

Neither is doing well at the start of the book.

Blomkvist for his daughter’s wedding. Salander hiding her 13-year-old niece Svala, whose mother has disappeared. Incredibly, Lisbeth accepts the role of guardian.

One of the few upsides of this story is that Svala is something of a child genius. She could be the next Salander.

Blomkvist’s beloved magazine Millennium has had to go digital: podcast, vlog. Disgusted, he takes a break from the job.

“Greenwashing”, and the damage caused by ostensibly green companies, is a major theme.

I’ll keep reading. But Smirnoff could have done much better with this material.