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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo fans, mark Sept. 1 on your calendar.
That’s the day The Girl in the Spider’s Web arrives in bookstores, Knopf publisher Sonny Mehta announced Tuesday, as he also revealed the book cover.
The announcement was made simultaneously around the world by the publishers in each country.
Plot details on The Girl in the Spider’s Web are being kept under wraps, other than a tease by the publisher that it will include hacking and corruption themes as well as some “surprises,” says writer David Lagercrantz, who is taking over the series from the deceased Stieg Larsson.
He died in 2004 of a heart attack before the original trilogy was published. After it became a huge hit, his estate decided to hire a writer to continue the series. That decision upset Larsson’s romantic partner of 32 years, Eva Gabrielsson. “The worst thing is how saddened Stieg would have been. He never let anyone work on his literary texts. He would have been furious. Who knows, maybe he’ll send a lightning bolt at the book launch,” she told the AFP.
Lagercrantz appears to be a good choice to pick up the mantle. Like Larsson, he was a crime reporter in his native Sweden before moving to writing books. He has published several novels and co-wrote the memoir of Swedish soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
“David Lagercrantz’s familiarity and understanding of Stieg’s work as a journalist, coupled with his appreciation Stieg’s work as a novelist, made him the perfect candidate to continue working on the Millennium series, and it is evident on every page of this extraordinary thriller,” said Mehta. “The Girl in the Spider’s Web is as good as its predecessors and uniquely of the moment. I know readers are going to be thrilled when they are reacquainted with both Lisbeth and Mikael in one of the most compelling Millennium novels to date.”
The Millennium trilogy was a huge hit, selling more than 80 million copies worldwide (including 25 million in the U.S.). Knopf has high hopes for the sequel, announcing a 500,000-copy first printing. Secrecy is tight. Reportedly Lagercrantz wrote the book on a computer that was not connected to the Internet and delivered the manuscript by hand. No review copies in any language will be distributed before the book goes on sale Sept. 1.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was made into an English-language film starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara and directed by David Fincher. It grossed $232 million worldwide but plans for a sequel remain in flux. A Swedish-language film version of the trilogy has grossed $214 million worldwide between the three movies.
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