Good news, Stieg Larsson fans: You haven’t seen the last of Lisbeth Salander yet.
The antihero who made her first appearance in Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, first published in the U.S. in 2008, is coming back in a new trilogy to be written by Swedish author Karin Smirnoff. The first book in the series, as yet untitled, will be published in the U.S. next year by Knopf.
The novel will be the seventh installment in the Millennium series. The first three books were written by Larsson, who died in 2004, and published posthumously. In 2015, a new trilogy, written by Swedish author David Lagercrantz, debuted with The Girl in the Spider’s Web; it ended in 2019 with The Girl Who Lived Twice.
The novels follow Salander, a hacker with a skill for disguises, and Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist, as they investigate various crimes. All were bestsellers in the U.S. and around the world.
In a statement, Smirnoff said that she instantly agreed to write the books when approached.
“It’s an exciting opportunity to independently create and make something new based on a unique fictional universe that is known worldwide,” she said. “I will continue to build on Stieg Larsson’s core themes, such as violence, abuse of power, and contemporary political currents.”
The first book in the new trilogy is slated for publication in the U.S. on Sept. 5, 2023.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
