Book Name : The Girl In The Spider's Web
What is it about : Commercial espionage in the field of artificial intelligence through cyber-hacking would take centre stage in this new adventure of our heroine Salander and the now-down-but-not-out crusading journalist Blomkvist. Oh, also an autistic child with photographic memory and genius drawing ability would pull together all the loose-ends and characters in this story and Salander's twin sister, the o-so-cool and beautiful Camilla made a surprise mid-book appearance.
Some thoughts after having read the book : Perhaps because a different author had been contracted to write this installment of the Millennium Series after the original author's death, so the prose, style and pace differed greatly from the previous stories. Then again, the theme and chemistry of Salander the punk cyber-hacker criss-crossing paths with the investigative reporter, Blomkvist felt somewhat tiresome, exhausted and deflated and this story offered not much intrigue and I did not find dramatic exciting climax and moody build-up along the way. Also, one rather annoying aspect in this book was that, after having spent pages describing a certain character about his life, background, pets-hate, job etc. and the readers thus established an understanding and even an affinity to that character, the author would abruptly kill off the guy in a shoot out or something; so the whole book felt disconnected and the pace scuppered with these guys emerging slowly and dying quickly.
Would I recommend this book to you : I would recommend the earlier three novels by the original author; especially the first installment which had much more drama, atmosphere, mystery and depth. Go read that first installment : The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and see how the "real" Blomkvist really dig into his investigations and Salander the cyber-punk cum martial arts killer could really kick some bad ass.
