Title: The Girl Who Lived Twice
Author: David Lagercrantz
Publisher: MacLehose Press
Synopsis:
“What will you do now?”
“I shall be the hunter and not the hunted“The girl with the dragon tattoo is finally ready to confront her nemesis, the only woman who is evidently and in many ways her match. Salander will not wait to be hunted. When she strikes it will be a double blow: vengeance for recent atrocities, and the settling of lifelong scores.
For months now Salander has been closing in on her target. She has moved from Stockholm, her hair is newly styled, her piercings are gone. She could pass for any other businesswoman. But not all businesswomen have a Beretta Cheetah beneath their jacket. They do not wield the lethal power of a hacker’s genius. They do not carry scars and tattoos to remind them that they have survived the unsurvivable.
The new episode in David Lagercrantz’s acclaimed, internationally bestselling continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo series is a thrilling ride that scales the heights of Everest and plunges the depths of Russian troll factories. It begins with the discovery of Mikael Blomkvist’s number at Millennium magazine in the pocket of an unidentified homeless man who died with the name of a government minister on his lips.
Blomkvist, at extreme risk to himself, tracks down his old friend and will protect her as far as he can. But he is powerless to crush her enemies on his own.
And for Lisbeth Salander, the personal is always political – and deadly.
My review:
The Girl Who Lived Twice is a welcome return to some great characters – Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist – as well as some not-so-likeable people such as Lisbeth’s sister Camilla, and back into the world of Millennium magazine (though the publication doesn’t feel like it features as heavily in this instalment).
I enjoyed this continuation of the series, as I enjoyed the other Millennium novels by Lagercrantz, and it’s good to be back with the characters. However, as before, I still feel that Lisbeth as a character is quite a lot different to how she was in Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium novels. I feel Lisbeth would have behaved quite differently in the original series – but at the end of the day, this isn’t those original novels, so we can’t expect her to be exactly the same. To be honest, we don’t see as much of Lisbeth as I’d like full stop in The Girl Who Lived Twice, but I did enjoy what I saw of her and Blomkvist, and their interactions.
I have to admit I felt a bit confused by all the characters in this book, but that’s something I often feel in this series, not helped by the fact they’re not familiar names (which is of course completely my problem!). I was intrigued by what happened to the man who was found dead and wanted to know more, and at the same time I didn’t really connect with the Everest storyline.
The book features a complex storyline which has plenty of twists and turns – as I have come to expect from this series – but some of the narrative did not hugely engage me. But The Girl Who Lived Twice is still well worth a read for anyone who is a fan of the previous books.
My rating: 4/5
Many thanks to the publisher, MacLehose Press, for providing a copy of this book on which I chose to write an honest review.
[…] The Girl Who Lived Twice – David Lagercrantz [read my review] – the continuation of Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series by David Lagercrantz. I’m finally getting around to reading this one! […]