Stieg Larsson, the Publisher and the Hornet's Nest

It is one of the most successful literary franchises of the past decade, posthumously published to both critical acclaim and commercial success. In the weeks before its simultaneous international publication though, the next installment in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series has become embroiled in another bitter row about artistic integrity, greed, literary quality and the agenda of its publishers. On 26 August, Larsson’s estate and the Swedish publisher Norstedts released The Girl in the Spider’s Web, a continuation of the hit series following the unlikely partnership of volatile computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and the maverick left-wing journalist Mickael Blomqvist.

Penned to order by the Swedish journalist David Lagercrantz, the book had previously been condemned by Larsson’s former partner Eva Gabrielsson, who lost a long-running court case over the right to Larsson’s work to the writer’s family. Lagercrantz also ghost-authored Swedish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s hit I Am Zlatan.

Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004, after which Gabrielsson turned down a fee of around two million pounds to join the company managing Larsson’s literary estate. As she and Larsson never married and he did not make a witnessed will, all published and unwritten work became the intellectual property of Larsson's brother and father. Just a few weeks before the new ghost-written book’s realease, childhood friends of Larsson from the city of Umeå, where he grew up, emerged to condemn the way the publishing house has behaved, attacking the continuation of the series as a cynical cash cow for Norstedts and its international partners. The new book is a completely new title rather than a completion of Larsson’s unfinished work. Upon his death Larsson had been working on a fourth Millennium title, parts of which are in Eva Gabrielsson’s possession.

Doubt has also been cast on Lagercrantz’ ability to work with Larsson’s characters and do justice to the semi-fictional version of Swedish society he created in his original triliogy. In his lifetime, Larsson was a prominent campaigner against the neo-Nazi movement and his books carried a serious message about what he perceived as a dangerous right-wing undercurrent in Swedish society. Since his death Sweden has seen an upsurge in extremist and xenophobic politics, attacks on minority groups and debates about race and immigration.

Early reviews of the troubled book were mixed, with Swedish reviewers being particularly harsh. The Swedish newspaper Expressen wrote that it ‘lacked Stieg Larsson’s raw talent’ and his style, which was ‘impossible to fake.’ The book was accidentally displayed early in some Swedish stores, allowing bloggers and reviewers to access it despite the best efforts of its publishers. Lagerkrantz himself was the subject of a sustained barrage of criticism after he appeared on Swedish TV the night before the initial release to promote his addition to the series.

“I have written a book that the whole world was dying to read," he said. "I regret the conflict with Eva Gabriellson, but I have profiled his literary work and I give money to Expo [Larsson’s former magazine]. The book is being praised in America, but now all people want is to come after me." Journalists were subject to an embargo in the run-up to release, including being unable to tweet that they had even read The Girl in the Spider’s Web. It was an uncharacteristically strict approach in the otherwise close-knit Swedish book world.

The international reception of the translated versions has been more sympathetic. “The New York Times and USA Today carry a little more weight than [Swedish newspaper] UNT,” Lagerkrantz remarked bitterly to Swedish public television in response to negative reviews of his work. The book looks set to top the sales charts in its opening weeks, but irrespective of how many copies it sells, it seems set to be forever dogged by the infighting and allegations of greed that have become its most talked-about feature.

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The Girl in the Spider’s Web is out now, published by MacLehose Press.