David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "lisbeth-salander"
The Girl in the Spider's Web
I've read reviews of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB that argue Lagercrantz's book is on a par with the previous Lisbeth Salander novels. I beg to disagree.
For on thing Lagercrantz is more of a journalist and celebrity biographer than a novelist and it shows. A big no-no in the mystery craft is not to try to use dialogue to provide backstory. Lagercrantz does this over and over. No reporter would let his source carry the interview like the Blomkvist interviews.
Also, once again, Salander, the star of the show, doesn't get enough time on stage. Too much of the book is about Blomkvist whining about Millennium possibly going under and stories in celebrity mags that claim he's over the hill. He hasn't had a big story since Lisbeth's Russian gangster father was revealed as a major crime figure and eliminated.
This story is about cyber hacking, mainly of the NSA. They're really bad guys in the story, so bad that the story is rather unbelievable. Yes, they snoop on everybody, but they don't steal intellectual property.
The intellectual property we're speaking of is artificial intelligence and a scientist named Franz Balder has made great strides in the field. But he's developed a conscience. All he wants to do is help his autistic son August. Surprisingly his ex-wife isn't opposed to the idea. But then he's murdered and Lisbeth swoops in to save August. There's also lots of information on how to hack into a file. Of course August is a savante (isn't everybody?) and he helps Salander decipher an important NSA file.
We are also treated to another nasty villain, Camilla, Lisbeth's beautiful, psychotic twin sister. She's inherited her father's crime syndicate, but she's so beautiful and shy looking that nobody believes what a criminal mastermind she is. She hates her sister and a confrontation is imminent.
That's another thing that's wrong with the book. The ending just fades out without a real confrontation. There is one, but it's not between the sisters. That's what I hate about series mysteries. Some of them have cliff hangers, and you have to buy the next book to find out what happens. Lagercrantz is doing well enough with this one for that to be inevitable. Not that I won't read it.
For on thing Lagercrantz is more of a journalist and celebrity biographer than a novelist and it shows. A big no-no in the mystery craft is not to try to use dialogue to provide backstory. Lagercrantz does this over and over. No reporter would let his source carry the interview like the Blomkvist interviews.
Also, once again, Salander, the star of the show, doesn't get enough time on stage. Too much of the book is about Blomkvist whining about Millennium possibly going under and stories in celebrity mags that claim he's over the hill. He hasn't had a big story since Lisbeth's Russian gangster father was revealed as a major crime figure and eliminated.
This story is about cyber hacking, mainly of the NSA. They're really bad guys in the story, so bad that the story is rather unbelievable. Yes, they snoop on everybody, but they don't steal intellectual property.
The intellectual property we're speaking of is artificial intelligence and a scientist named Franz Balder has made great strides in the field. But he's developed a conscience. All he wants to do is help his autistic son August. Surprisingly his ex-wife isn't opposed to the idea. But then he's murdered and Lisbeth swoops in to save August. There's also lots of information on how to hack into a file. Of course August is a savante (isn't everybody?) and he helps Salander decipher an important NSA file.
We are also treated to another nasty villain, Camilla, Lisbeth's beautiful, psychotic twin sister. She's inherited her father's crime syndicate, but she's so beautiful and shy looking that nobody believes what a criminal mastermind she is. She hates her sister and a confrontation is imminent.
That's another thing that's wrong with the book. The ending just fades out without a real confrontation. There is one, but it's not between the sisters. That's what I hate about series mysteries. Some of them have cliff hangers, and you have to buy the next book to find out what happens. Lagercrantz is doing well enough with this one for that to be inevitable. Not that I won't read it.
The Girl Who Takes An Eye for an Eye
Despite what some reviewers claim, Lisbeth Salander is on stage much more in Lagercrantz's second novel, than in any of Larsson's originals.
At the beginning she's in jail and she must deal with one of the two major villains in the novel, Benito, a crewcut mauler, who makes the warden's life hell. Benito likes to torment Faria Kazi, a Moslem woman in jail for murder. Lisbeth is her protector.
Mikael Blomkvist, editor of MILLENIUM, an investigative magazine, has an always will be the major character, if not the most popular, in the novel. He takes his cue from Salander to investigate the mistreatment of identical twins. Salander and her malevolent sister were involved in the program. It involved nature versus nurture. The twins were separated early on. One would go to a relatively poor family, the other to a rich family. The theory was that environment would play a role on how both personalities developed. The second villain in the novel, Rakel Greitz, is a psychoanalyst who has gone to insane lengths to keep the program under wraps, including the murder of a significant character.
Two other identical twins , Dan Brody and Leo Mannheimer also play a role. Brody was put with a farmer who worked his charges nearly to death. Leo Mannheimer is located with an investment broker and his family. Brody's salvation is the guitar; he becomes a jazz virtuoso; Leo, although adopted, has been tagged to run the company as he has an extremely high IQ. But Leo is miserable; he loves to play the piano, and goes so far as to play concerts.
Lisbeth's mentor, Holger Palmgren, who, as we know, saved her from a sexual predator, goes to see her in prison, despite being confined to a wheelchair. He has been given papers by a secretary who worked at the institute that ran the identical twin experiment. It names names and Lisbeth passes them on to Blomkvist.
As the story moves along, we eventually find out why Faria Kazi is in jail. It has to do with her family's disapproval of her boyfriend. Her brothers are jihadists; he's much more moderate. Conveniently, Faria's two brothers and Benito join forces against Lisbeth. Of yeah, there's also a motor cycle gang we've met before in the other books, and Dr. Greist employs a thug to do her dirty work.
At the end of the novel, Lagercrantz thanks Larsson's brother and father for giving him a chance to continue Larsson's work. According to what I've read, the forth novel was almost complete. Lagercrantz is no Larsson; we shouldn't expect him to be, but he does a capable job developing Lisbeth Salander. My only complaint is the ending sort of fizzles and Lagercrantz leaves room for more torment for Lisbeth as some of her enemies are still alive, and that doesn't include her evil sister who did not appear in this episode.
At the beginning she's in jail and she must deal with one of the two major villains in the novel, Benito, a crewcut mauler, who makes the warden's life hell. Benito likes to torment Faria Kazi, a Moslem woman in jail for murder. Lisbeth is her protector.
Mikael Blomkvist, editor of MILLENIUM, an investigative magazine, has an always will be the major character, if not the most popular, in the novel. He takes his cue from Salander to investigate the mistreatment of identical twins. Salander and her malevolent sister were involved in the program. It involved nature versus nurture. The twins were separated early on. One would go to a relatively poor family, the other to a rich family. The theory was that environment would play a role on how both personalities developed. The second villain in the novel, Rakel Greitz, is a psychoanalyst who has gone to insane lengths to keep the program under wraps, including the murder of a significant character.
Two other identical twins , Dan Brody and Leo Mannheimer also play a role. Brody was put with a farmer who worked his charges nearly to death. Leo Mannheimer is located with an investment broker and his family. Brody's salvation is the guitar; he becomes a jazz virtuoso; Leo, although adopted, has been tagged to run the company as he has an extremely high IQ. But Leo is miserable; he loves to play the piano, and goes so far as to play concerts.
Lisbeth's mentor, Holger Palmgren, who, as we know, saved her from a sexual predator, goes to see her in prison, despite being confined to a wheelchair. He has been given papers by a secretary who worked at the institute that ran the identical twin experiment. It names names and Lisbeth passes them on to Blomkvist.
As the story moves along, we eventually find out why Faria Kazi is in jail. It has to do with her family's disapproval of her boyfriend. Her brothers are jihadists; he's much more moderate. Conveniently, Faria's two brothers and Benito join forces against Lisbeth. Of yeah, there's also a motor cycle gang we've met before in the other books, and Dr. Greist employs a thug to do her dirty work.
At the end of the novel, Lagercrantz thanks Larsson's brother and father for giving him a chance to continue Larsson's work. According to what I've read, the forth novel was almost complete. Lagercrantz is no Larsson; we shouldn't expect him to be, but he does a capable job developing Lisbeth Salander. My only complaint is the ending sort of fizzles and Lagercrantz leaves room for more torment for Lisbeth as some of her enemies are still alive, and that doesn't include her evil sister who did not appear in this episode.
