The Girl Who Lived Twice

Mikael Blomkvist is trying to reach Lisbeth Salander—the fierce, unstoppable girl with the dragon tattoo, to no avail. He worries that she is getting herself into danger, but is pre-occupied with a decline in his career. He needs her help unraveling the identity of a man who died with Blomkvist’s phone number in his pocket — a man who does not exist in any official records and whose garbled last words hinted at knowledge that would be dangerous to important people. He is persuaded by a medical examiner to look into the death of the homeless man, but Lisbeth has disappeared when Blomkvist reaches out seeking her assistance. She’s sold her apartment in Stockholm, and without telling him, has left Sweden. She’s told no one where she is and no one is aware that at long last she’s got her primal enemy, her twin sister, Camilla, squarely in her sights. In the end, it will be Blomkvist in a moment of unimaginable self-sacrifice–who will make it possible for Lisbeth to face the most important battle of her life, and, finally, to put her past to rest.

A review by The Washington Post noted the focus on Blomkvists character and referred to it as "Salander is less physically present this time — and that’s too bad, because she’s fascinating", but felt the novel had less "violence and gore" that were prominent in the preceding novels.[3] The Guardian felt that While Lagercrantz’s prose is more serviceable than the peculiarly clodhopping original writing, by this point the main characters have, sadly, become subject to the law of diminishing returns – in particular Salander, who is now just another all-purpose kick-ass heroine.[4]

• Official page for the novel at Swedish publisher Norstedts Förlag