The English title of the latest novel in the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, and the first written by a woman, will be The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons.
The first three books – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest – were written by Larsson and published posthumously after his sudden death in 2004.
Larsson had planned for the series to include 10 books, and in 2015 the next book in the series, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, written by David Lagercrantz, was published. Lagercrantz, who was appointed by Larsson’s estate, wrote two more novels in the series: The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye and The Girl Who Lived Twice.
For the seventh book in the series, the writing has been passed on to Swedish author Karin Smirnoff. The novel, which follows hacker Lisbeth Salander and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist, was published in Swedish as Havsörnens Skrik last week, but Sarah Death’s English translation will not be out until August next year.
Smirnoff’s book moves Salander’s story from Stockholm to northern Sweden, which UK publisher MacLehose Press said was “an area vast and beautiful, but also dealing with economic and social problems and the effects of climate change and environmental exploitation”.
MacLehose Press said the first six books in the series have sold more than 100m copies worldwide across all editions and languages.
Smirnoff worked as a journalist before quitting her job to buy a wood factory. Her debut novel, My Brother, was published in the UK by Pushkin Press, and is the story of a woman called Jana returning to her childhood home and the secrets of her family. Laura Wilson in her Guardian review said it was “challenging, certainly, and not for the squeamish, but the fragile, sardonic Jana is a distinctive narrator”.
Although Larsson’s estate has approved the continuation of his series, the late writer’s long-term partner Eva Gabrielsson has been vocal in her disapproval. She said she did not support Lagercrantz’s continuation of the series, telling AFP she “wouldn’t have continued Stieg’s work. It was his language, his unique narrative … The worst thing is how saddened Stieg would have been. He never let anyone work on his literary texts. He would have been furious.”
