The Girl Who Lived Twice

David Lagercrantz’s The Girl Who Lived Twice picks up shortly after the events of his previous novel, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, with Lisbeth Salander tracking her sister Camilla in Russia. Meanwhile, Mikael Blomkvist feels distracted while writing a story about Russian cyber trolls and finds his interest piqued when a medical examiner seeks his help discovering the identity of a deceased homeless man. Lisbeth finds that, even after her sister attempted to kill her, she cannot bring herself to kill her sister, so she helps Blomkvist as a side project. Blomkvist discovers that the dead homeless man is connected to an Everest expedition involving several high-ranking members of government as well as the Russian intelligence show more service. As he and Salander pursue independent leads, they find their worked dogged by Camilla’s agents, who have their own connection to Russian intelligence.

While Lagercrantz had previously spent a great amount of time adding his own material to Lisbeth’s past, here he focuses only on what both he and Stieg Larsson previously wrote. His focus on Russian intelligence and cyber trolls offers particularly timely commentary. Though Lagercrantz still doesn’t quite match Larsson’s style, he ably balances several story threads and offers a satisfying resolution to the events he set in motion in The Girl in the Spider's Web. In my opinion, this is the strongest of Lagercrantz’s three Millennium series novels. show less

I "discovered" Stieg Larsson's Millennium series with the original Swedish movies that came out, oh, a number of years ago. Loved the movies, all three of them, so I went out and got the books. Really enjoyed those as well, although for my tastes Larsson's writing seemed like it could have done with some editing. The books, while fun, seemed to meander. I wondered if, because they were published posthumously, his estate and/or the editors didn't know how to edit them down to neater, cleaner stories. Just speculation.

When I heard someone else had been conscripted to write more in the series, I absolutely wasn't interested in reading them. Sacrilege, I thought. But, by and by, I wound up giving the first book by this new writer, David show more Lagercrantz* a try. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that he kept the spirit of the characters and the stories alive (and well!) while trimming down Larsson's stylistically bloated prose into something more concise. I sized him up as the better writer, knowing the comparison was completely unfair. But his book read tighter, to me at least.

I would have said the same about his second novel in this series.

This third one let me down quite a bit. I'll still give it 3 out of 5 stars, but I didn't think this one did the series justice. The overly complicated sub-plot of the people on Mr Everest was just cumbersome. My god, so many characters were involved in that. Hard to keep up with all of them. And in the end, that was about the third most interesting sub-plot in the whole novel. Scratch that. The woman who moved into Lisbeth's old apartment who we only see for a dozen pages or so was more interesting. I just didn't care about the Everest story-line. It did nothing to propel our main protagonists (Lisbeth and Mikael) forward in the grand scheme.

So while Mikael spends over half the novel investigating the death of a sherpa who ended up dead in the streets of Stockholm (yeah, you read that right) Lisbeth spends her lesser portion of the book doing very little. And that's what's really missing here. In Lagercrantz's last two books, Lisbeth was the center of attention. Why he decided to push her to the back burner this time is beyond me. It's written right there on the cover: "A Lisbeth Salander novel." But no, it was "A Dead Sherpa" story, which probably would have been a pretty good story if it never included Lisbeth and Mikael at all.

Almost as if—and I continue to speculate, wildly in fact, but this feels right—Lagercrantz was under contract to write a third book, was running out of ideas, and merged in an idea he had for a completely separate novel in order to satisfy the terms of his arrangement. He's said that he was only going to write three and after this he was going to move onto something else. My guess is he had a solid two-and-a-half books in him and struggled to piece together the rest. Or maybe he just ran out of Salander Steam.

* Good lord, I thought to myself, did they simply hire him because his surname would put him alphabetically right next to Larsson on the book shelves? I can only speculate, but that certainly didn't hurt sales. show less

The sixth book in the Millennium series starts with a welcome return to form after a dip with the last novel. This one focuses more on the journalistic investigation by Mikael Blomkvist into the accusations about the Swedish Minister of Defence, Johannes Forsell, rather than Lisbeth Salander and her search for revenge against her sister, Camilla. However, the two strands are linked by the involvement of a Russian mafia and this makes for an n intriguing investigation by Blomkvist which raises the standard from the previous book in the series. However, the denouement with Lisbeth’s actions, as much as they mirror her behaviour in previous books, is somewhat disappointing after the earlier pages and makes me wonder whether this should show more be the last novel in the series. show less

This 6th book in the Millennium series featuring Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist focuses mainly on events that transpired years ago involving a disastrous Mount Everest expedition, politics, and Russian troll factories.

The other line of the plot deals with Lisbeth and her twin sister, Camilla. It seems that Camilla wants revenge by killing her.

The story is told in alternate viewpoints and skips all over the place from past to present. Unfortunately, this whole concept was not as exciting as I have come to expect from this series and I was a bit disappointed at the pace. The plot was quite convoluted and it seemed that Lisbeth and Mikael were only minor side characters involved in old spy stuff.

I got this book from a friend and show more have the next installment (by a new author) in my TBR, but I think I need a break. show less

This is the third book in the Millennium series written by the new author who has taken the place of Stieg Larsson who wrote the first 3 books. Upon finishing this book, i've gone back and revised my rating of the 2 other books by this author from 4 stars to 3 stars.

Here's the problem with the new author: He uses all the people from the first three novels, and has an awareness of their character, but he fails to truly suck you into those characters. Everything is very surface. Yes, they act according to who they are in the old books, but they don't have the same very evident personalities and deep struggles.

I won't be reading (or listening, since i've used Audible for all six of the books) to any future books the author may write. Simon show more Vance narrates all 6 books, but even with his consummate skills, and he is excellent, the books just do not feel the same, they don't draw you into the story the way Larsson did. show less

This is the third sequel to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy featuring super-hacker loner Lisbet Salander written by Lagercrantz. Two books of a new sequel trilogy, by Karin Smirnoff, have so far been published. I still find it amusing the English translations of these novels use The Girl Who… as titles, unlike the Swedish novels (this one is actually titled, Hon som måste dö, She who must die), especially given Sweden cobbled together a series of unrelated Goldie Hawn movies in the 1970s and 1980s by retitling them as The Girl Who…, Tjejen som…, such as Tjejen som föll överbord (Overboard) and Tjejen som gjorde lumpen (Private Benjamin). It’s either a bizarre coincidence (possible, as the first book was The Girl with show more the Dragon Tattoo, after all), or someone somewhere is displaying a wicked sense of humour…

The story so far: Salander’s father was a senior GRU officer who defected to Sweden and, while there, protected by a secret department of Säpo, set up a Russian criminal syndicate, Zvesda Bratva. Salander also has a sister, who is stunningly beautiful and now the head of the syndicate. The two hate each other.

A homeless man in Stockholm dies in suspicious circumstances, and the forensic pathologist attached to the case contacts Mikael Blomkvist. Who then contacts Salander. Between them, they identify the homeless man as a sherpa, who saved the life of the current Swedish minister of defence during an ill-fated expedition to climb Everest years before. A woman died on the expedition – her husband was a US billionaire with links to Zvesda Bratva, and rumour has it she was going to reveal all. So what really happened on the mountain?

Salander is busy trying to destroy her sister; Blomkvist is hunting for a story to re-invigorate his career… and the murdered homeless man might be it… but he’s side-tracked by the apparent breakdown of the Swedish minister of defence. Of course, everything is linked. Blomkvist’s investigations result in him being kidnapped by Zvesda Bratva, and tortured. Salander rides to the rescue.

The previous two Lagerctantz novels were not very well-written – certainly, the English translations were badly-written. This one is even worse. I mean, you don’t expect shining prose from a thriller (known as deckare, here in Sweden), but even prose anti-stylists, and there are a lot of them in science fiction, would say prose which is painful to read is doing it wrong. The Swedish cultural elements are handled well enough – although Lagercrantz does like name-checking streets in Stockholm – but it’s hard to see much past Salander’s genius hacking, genius everything in fact, or Blomkvist’s amazing journalism and interstellar journalistic reputation. Neither of which are remotely credible.

The first book in the series was a solid thriller – which is why I maintain the US adaptation is better than the Swedish one – but the sequels are like… those gymkhana event things, except each jump is made up of sharks stacked one on top of the other… One day I’ll definitely read the books in Swedish… but I suspect my opinion of them will not change. show less

Two sisters, mirror opposites, have been on a collision course for years and now it comes to a head on either side of an investigation into an ill-fated Everest expedition. The Girl Who Lived Twice is the sixth book of the Millennium series and third by David Lagercrantz, sees the final confrontation between Lisbeth and Camilla after finding out the truth behind an incident on Mount Everest.

Lisbeth Salander attempts to kill her sister Camilla in Moscow, but can’t pull the trigger and goes to Copenhagen and gets into a relationship with a domestically abused woman while spying on her sister and helping in-a-slump Mikael Blomkvist investigate the death of a homeless man. Blomkvist’s investigation happens when a coroner calls him show more because the dead man has his phone number and Mikael learns the man accosted a female journalist spouting about the Swedish Defense Minister who is enduring a disinformation campaign from Russia. The homeless man turns out to be a Sherpa who was apart of an ill-fated expedition up Mount Everest that caught global attention because of the death of a socialite who was on it, but it turned out so was the Defense Minister before his political career. It turns out the Minister’s friend was working for the Russian mob and essentially killed the socialite for her American billionaire husband who is also connected with the mob and convinced the Sherpa to leave her and help the Minister off the mountain instead. The Sherpa feels guilty and after the death of his wife loses his mind and wants to tell the truth, but the Minister is convinced to get him out of Nepal to a asylum in Sweden but he later escapes and the Minister’s corrupt friend killed him then started blackmailing him resulting in him almost committing suicide but Blomkvist saves him. While Blomkvist is going to interview the Minister, he is abducted by Camilla and her associates to be tortured and get Lisbeth to them. Lisbeth now in Sweden, tracks them down, and confronts her sister who attempts to set Lisbeth on fire only to light herself up instead and kills herself because she is no longer beautiful. The Minister’s corrupt friend is arrested, Mikael’s new lover writes the article about the truth of the ill-fated expedition, and he learns of Lisbeth’s “help” at his stalled article.

While Lisbeth and Mikael are “featured” they aren’t the heart of the book, that goes to the characters created by Lagercrantz that are connected with the main plot of the mysterious Sherpa and an ill-fated Mount Everest expedition he was apart of along with the future Swedish Defense Minister and his friend as well the socialite that died on it. Throughout Lagercrantz’s books in the series, Lisbeth has been sidelined and Mikael has been “used” more but only for original characters to have the spotlight. If the Mount Everest plot had been a book not connected to the Millennium series, I might have really enjoyed it more. But this series is supposed to be about Lisbeth Salander and throughout the last three book it has not been. The “climactic” confrontation between Lisbeth and Camilla at the end, is so disappointing that the build up over the previous books was a waste as well. Frankly Lagercrantz’s Lisbeth is a pale imitation of Larrson’s Lisbeth thus making this and the previous two books a waste.

The Girl Who Lived Twice might be billed a Lisbeth Salander novel, but in fact she’s just a name so David Lagercrantz can sell books. show less