The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz

It was with misgivings that I started reading The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz, the sixth installment in the Stieg Larson’s Millennium series. I found the fifth installment in the series, The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye , a big letdown when compared to the earlier installments.

The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz

Having just finished the latest installment, I find it lacks the intensity and spellbinding quality of Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium trilogy. I find that the novel meanders annoyingly and Lisbeth Salander is less physically present this time. For me, I crave the literary company of Salander so you can understand my disappointment at her appearing intermittently to lend Blomkvist technical support. The Girl Who Lived Twice makes me wonder whether we need this installment.

There are two storylines in the novel. The first involves Salander’s continuing battle with her deranged twin sister, Camilla, who goes by the name of Kira to her Russian associates. In the other, journalist Blomkvist, Salander’s good friend, investigates the death of a homeless man on the streets of Stockholm.

Blomkvist, who has been neglecting a story on Russian troll farms, is at first lukewarm to unravel the man’s identity. But when it emerges that the dead man was a Nepalese Sherpa and linked to a high-profile Everest disaster involving a Swedish official, he set out to investigate. Evidence soon reveals that the man may have been poisoned with a particular exotic brew. The minister of defense whom Blomkvist is investigating once survived a notorious Mount Everest climbing expedition in which several high profile individuals died. Blomkvist suspects that there may be a connection between the dead man and the notorious Everest expedition.

Salander has meanwhile gone to Moscow to kill Camilla/Kira but at the crucial moment, she can’t pull the trigger All she felt was a shadow from her childhood sweep over her once more, and she realized that not only had she missed her chance, she now stood defenceless before a rank of armed enemies.

The plot grows needlessly complex, bogging down in a sea of characters. I find the link to the Everest expedition particularly tedious. I was engrossed in the earlier parts of the novel but as the plot develops, my interest started to wane. I forced myself to finish the book.

I hope this sixth installment is the last in the series. Are you listening, David Lagercrantz?