THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB – Plot Reveal

So far, with a global embargo in place, very few details of the much-anticipated return of Lisbeth Salander have been revealed.

Now MacLehose Press is releasing key details of the plot to whet the appetite of the 15 million readers in the U.K. who bought the trilogy.

She is the girl with the dragon tattoo: Lisbeth Salander,

uncompromising misfit, genius hacker.

He is the crusading journalist: Mikael Blomkvist,

dedicated to exposing corruption and abuse.

They have not been in touch for some time.

Then Blomkvist is contacted by renowned Swedish scientist Professor Balder. Warned that his life is in danger, but more concerned for his son’s well-being, Balder wants Millennium to publish his story – and it is a terrifying one. Säpo, Sweden’s security police, have offered him protection, but what Balder hopes for is to preserve his life’s work ‒ by going public.

More interesting to Blomkvist than Balder’s world-leading advances in Artificial Intelligence, is news that the professor had been working with a superhacker, a girl with a dragon tattoo.

Salander is busy with an agenda of her own. Using her old codename Wasp, she has been trying to hack into the American National Security Agency - a lunacy driven by vengeance, and fraught with every possible consequence.

Like Balder, she is a target of ruthless cyber gangsters who call themselves the Spiders. The violent unscrupulousness of this criminal conspiracy will very soon bring terror to the snowbound streets of Stockholm, to the Millennium team ‒ and to Blomkvist and Salander themselves. 

The adrenaline-charged, brilliantly intricate and utterly absorbing narrative of The Girl in the Spider’s Web is inspired by Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. The duo who thrilled millions of readers across the world are back. 

About the author:

David Lagercrantz was born in 1962, and is an acclaimed author and journalist. As well as numerous biographies (including the internationally bestselling I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović, for which he was the ghostwriter) he has written four novels, including Fall of Man in Wilmslow (published by MacLehose Press in May 2015). The Girl in the Spider’s Web is the continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series. 

A continuation of the series by Stieg Larsson

Translated from the Swedish by George Goulding

Published by MacLehose Press in hardback on 27 August 2015 at £19.99

Also available as an e-book and can be purchased from the Shots Bookstore here

Swedish Crime Fiction Awards

The Swedish Crime Academy (Svenska Deckarakademin) have recently announced a number of crime fiction awards:

Best Swedish Crime Novel Award: Den osynlige mannen fran Salem (The Invisible Man from Salem) by Christoffer Carlsson.  He was up against a number of well-known authors  Arne Dahl, Hakan Nesser, Johan Theorin and Katarina Wennstam.

Martin Beck Award for Best Translated Crime Novel: The Missing File (published in Sweden as Utsuddade spar by D.A. Mishani (Israel) (translated by Nils Larsson).  The Missing File  was shortlisted for the 2013 CWA International Dagger.

Best Debut Novel: Väster om friheten  (West of Liberty) by Thomas Engström


 

Mons Kallentoft's Travelling Road Show

© Tobias Lundqvist

Today's guest blog is by Mons Kallentoft. His debut novel Pesetas was awarded the Swedish Writers Union’s Award for Best Debut Novel, the Katapult Prize.  He is most widely known for his crime series about Police Inspector Malin Fors, which takes place in the Swedish town of Linköping, Kallentoft's place of birth.  The series consists of six books and the first one, “Midwinter Sacrifice”, has been translated into more than fifteen languages.

He has also won several prizes, such as the Gourmand World Cookbook Award (2005), the Hagdahl Prize (2008) and Primo Espana (2009).

The last few years I have been on the road a lot, travelling from country to country, from festival to festival, talking about my books and my heroine Malin Fors.

I love these trips.

I love meeting readers, fellow writers and the nice intelligent people in the book business.  I like to give interviews to interested journalists, not yet completely tired of us Scandinavian crime writers.

What I don’t like are all the flights, the loneliness of hotel rooms, and the sadness when I hear my children’s voices on the telephone: ’When are you coming home, Daddy?’

Tomorrow.

Or the day after that.

I usually hit a bar after those phone calls.  A cold beer or something much stronger.  If I am in France, I reward myself with a too-expensive Burgundy.  I did that recently in Edinburgh as well, in the rather dull fine dining restaurant at The Balmoral Hotel.  I drank a homesick bottle of burgundy on my own and thought; what am I doing here?

Apart from that, I had a nice time in Edinburgh.

Many of my British colleagues are manic jokers; they can´t open their mouths without cracking a joke, it seems.  I am not much of a comedian and while I certainly love my colleagues’ company and the entertainment of it all, it makes me feel like a stiff polar bear with a frozen sense of the world.  Don´t take it so bloody seriously, man, I say to myself.  Relax.  Tell a Viking joke.

One fixture on the travelling writer’s scene is R J Ellory.  A serious fellow like me, and regarded as a bit pompous by many.  I always found him nice, but when I met him outside Paris after Midwinter Sacrifice had been successful in the UK, I had the sense that he saw me as just another competitor, best ignored.

Or worse.

It was with sadness and some amusement that I read about his sock-puppeting.

Why do it?

 

It is not just a thing you do.

His books have not received much attention here in Sweden.  But his sock-puppeting made quite a stir.

This is another sad thing.  Good books don´t always travel well.  Mistakes always do.

I read A Quiet Belief in Angels and thought it was a good novel, daring within the genre, risk-taking as few crime novels are.

I am writing this in bed in Stockholm, thinking about the time I was on Polish morning television.  The guest before me was R2D2 of Star Wars fame.  I was tired, hungover, and a bit high on pain medication for my bad back and simply not in the mood for a translated conversation with a robot in Polish.  My handler was not happy after the show: ’You didn’t smile’, was the verdict.

But I am smiling now.  At the memory of the aggressive little robot.

A big wide killer of a smile.

Tomorrow the travelling road show that is me goes to Gothenburg, to the annual book fair.  It is the big party of the Swedish book industry, and can best be described as one long hangover for everybody.  It is great fun, and in Sweden, I am considered something of a man about town, so I am a fish in the right water there.

After that, I am scheduled to go to Rome, then to Canada, then to . . .

I don’t know where yet.  But there will be more of those nice, funny people to meet.  And more of those dreaded phone calls.

I realise I am a lucky man.  I get to live in many worlds.  Both a stranger and not.

Newsy Stuff

According to Nordic Bookblog The Best Swedish Crime Novel for 2010 has been won by Leif G.W. Persson with his novel Den döende detektiven (The Dying Detective).

As can be expected with the run up to the end of the year, “the best books of the year” are still being revealed. Margaret Cannon has revealed in the Globe and Mail what is called the deathly dozen for 2010. The full list can be found here and it includes such luminaries as Carl Hiaasen , Louise Penny, Philip Kerr, Michael Connelly and Giles Blunt to name some of them.

The Guardian has also selected its best books of the year and I have to admit to being profoundly disappointed with the number of crime novels that made the list. The only two novels to make the list were C J Sansom’s Heartstone and the excellent The Ghost of Belfast (aka The Twelve) by Stuart Neville. It makes me sometimes wonder whether or not people actually read crime novels. I know that they do. The full list can be found here.

Laura Wilson’s crime fiction review round-up can also be found in The Guardian. She reviews the new Anne Holt novel, Edward Wright’s From Blood, Aline Templeton’s Cradle to Grave and Horace McCoy’s 1935 novel They Shoot Horses, Don’t They (reissued by Serpent’s Tail).

The Daily Telegraph have published Part 1 of their fiction books of the year. Sadly, like The Guardian so far only two crime novels have been suggested. Sadie Jones nominates The Existential Detective by Alice Thompson (Two Ravens Press), whilst Mark Billingham puts forward Truth by Peter Temple (Quercus).

The Independent have also released a list of their books for Christmas. The full list can be found here. In the list crime fiction critic Barry Forshaw nominates (under crime and thriller) his selection which includes Heartstone by C J Sansom, Jo NesbØ’s The Snowman and The Holy Thief by William Ryan amongst others.

In the New York Times Jane Maslin has listed her fiction books of 2010. The full list can be found here and includes Don Winslow’s Savages and Lee Child’s 61 Hours.

Excellent article on the Scandinavian invasion by Jordan Foster can be found in Publishers Weekly.

Don’t know how this was missed by Jordan Foster has also interviewed Denise Mina for Publishers Weekly.

The BBC’s version of Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently is due to be shown on BBC4 on Thursday 16 December 2010 at 9:00pm. Hopefully it will be received a lot better than 2005's Hitchhiker's Guide movie.

Faster the latest film featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton has just been released. The trailer can be seen below.

After being seen in a number of family (and sometimes annoying) films. Johnson is making his way back into action films where he initially made his name.

In Faster After 10 years in prison, Driver (Dwayne Johnson) has a singular focus - to avenge the murder of his brother during the botched bank robbery that led to his imprisonment. Now a free man with a deadly to-do list in hand, he's finally on his mission...but with two men on his trail - a veteran cop (Billy Bob Thornton) just days from retirement, and a young egocentric hitman (Oliver Jackson-­Cohen) with a flair for the art of killing and a newfound worthy opponent. Whilst already released in the United States, it is not due for release in the UK until February 2011.