A sequel to late Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millennium crime trilogy will go on sale in at least 35 countries from August, the book’s publishers said on Tuesday.

That Which Does Not Kill was completed in November by David Lagercrantz, known for co-authoring Swedish football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s autobiography. He stands in for Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004 aged 50.

The book will continue the story of the troubled but resourceful heroine Lisbeth Salander first made famous in Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

But the author remained tight-lipped about the meaning of the title or what direction the action-packed political thriller – 500 pages long in Swedish – will take.

“What I wanted to make use of in the book was the vast mythology that Stieg Larsson left behind, the world he created,” Lagercrantz told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, adding that he remained loyal to Larsson’s writing style which weaved criticism of social and political issues with criminal intrigue.

“Lisbeth Salander’s not just any superhero. She’s not only great because of her talents but also because of her context and background.”

At the time of his death Stieg Larsson reportedly had plans to write at least another seven novels.

His publishers Nordstedts compared the planned release on 27 August of the book in many of the 35 countries which have signed a publishing deal to the global splash made by Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code in 2003.

Nordstedts said the first three books in the Lisbeth Salander series have sold in the region of 80m copies worldwide since the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, went on sale in 2005.

the_red_ninja wrote:How does this guy get the rights to publish an official sequel? What's wrong with writing fanfiction for yourself yo?



P.S. I'm currently reading The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.

The girl with the dragon tattoo is back—under slightly different circumstances. The fourth book in the best-selling Millennium series by Stieg Larsson will be published in the U.S. on September 1, under the title “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” Alfred A. Knopf and other publishers of the series announced today.

The book was written by Swedish writer David Lagercrantz, a former crime journalist and novelist best-known for co-authoring the 2014 memoir of Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic. “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” will be the first novel in the series not written by Mr. Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004 at age 50.

Mr. Lagercrantz was selected by the Larsson estate and the author’s Swedish publisher, Norstedts, to continue the series, said Sonny Mehta, Editor-in-Chief of Knopf. “I think it has all the richness of the original sequence of novels,” said Mr. Mehta in a recent phone interview. “It’s got a whole chain of American characters in it, and American settings as well.”

“The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” follows two previous sequels, “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” and will once again star tattooed computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist. In a statement released by Knopf, Mr. Lagercrantz said “Spider’s Web” will include “the introduction of Silicon Valley as a locale and a character from the National Security Agency in a central role. There are even symbols and code.”

“Stieg Larsson was a master at creating complex narratives,” said Mr. Lagercrantz. “Narratives made all the more forceful because of the journalistic authority with which they were originally written. That was something that informed my approach to book four, and I’m confident Millennium readers will identify with the storylines in Spider’s Web.”

The Millennium novels have sold over 80 million copies worldwide since their debut in 2005. Publishers are betting big on the new book, with a first print run in the U.S. of 500,000 copies and a cumulative first printing in 25 countries in the millions.

“Spider’s Web” features a bold black cover with a red web-like design by Peter Mendelsund, who also created the U.S. jackets for the previous Millennium books. Mr. Mendelsund used the color scheme and typography to link the book to earlier to earlier installments. “The series already had a fairly strong look, I hope somewhat iconic,” he said. “A big part of this was to find a way to carry those elements through to the new book while still adding something different.”

He also looked for a design that would “carry a lot of metaphoric weight.” “The task was really to find a background image that would speak to this particular narrative. So the idea of a network, be it a digital network or a neural network,” appealed to him, he said. “The idea of blood of is relevant—both the familial ties and in terms of violence.”

Watch the book trailer below:

Salander and Blomkvist have survived the authorship transition intact and are just as compelling as ever.

But Swedish crime novelist David Lagercrantz takes the reins with prowess, not only mimicking Larsson's shamelessly pulpy prose, but admirably expanding the deliciously depraved world of the novels.