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 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.