The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz (2015)

I know I wasn't the only one that was disappointed that we were not going to see anymore Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist books, as author Stieg Larsson had died. So I was thrilled when another Swedish author had gotten the rights to continue their adventures in this book and that the new author is also a journalist, a crime reporter, so he could continue making the fictional journalist realistic. I rarely pick up a new book in hardcover, but I did this one, and read it in a weekend. The story is complex, with many characters and locations around the globe. I appreciated the author giving the main characters from the previous books, just as a reminder, as they play roles in this story or at least get mentioned.

Blomkvist's magazine Millenium is in danger, as I can imagine many a magazine is struggling in these days of everything being on the Web. So how does journalism keep surviving, who can pay investigative journalists? But that has little to do with this book, just came up as a question. Blomkvist is restless, some are calling him washed up. He gets a call from Frans Balder in the middle of the night, and goes to see what he wants, and from then it is non stop.

Frans Balder is a genius mathematician, with autistic son August, fading actress ex-wife Hanna, her no good current live-in Lasse Westman. He has done some amazing work with AI that others want. He has returned to Sweden to take his son under his own wing and realized the kid is also brilliant with numbers and can draw amazingly - a savant. The kid becomes a key figure in this thriller.

Lisbeth Salander is working on finding the remnants of her late father's band of evil-doers, which have been called Spiders. I liked the way the comic characters were brought into the story. Brilliant techies, but social misfits often turn to comic books (as in Big Bang Theory) - and understanding these was a clue to those thrying to figure things out. Salander does stir up a wasp's (not hornet's) nest in America, so we have a complex story that includes Swedish police, Swedish Security Police, American National Security Agency, an investigative magazine, bad guys, some with a bit of a conscience, and more.

And now I know there can be more Blomkvist Salander books. Yeah!!