The Girl in the Eagle's Talons

A Lisbeth Salander Novel (Millennium Series, Book 7)

By: Karin Smirnoff, Sarah Death - translator

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

#1 INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER • Lisbeth Salander returns, in a trailblazing new installment to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series • Also known as the Millennium series

Change is coming to Sweden’s far north: its untapped natural resources are sparking a gold rush with the criminal underworld leading the charge. But it’s not the prospect of riches that brings Lisbeth Salander to the small town of Gasskas. She has been named guardian to her niece Svala, whose mother has disappeared. Two things soon become clear: Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager—and she’s being watched.

Mikael Blomkvist is also heading north. He has seen better days. Millennium magazine is in its final print issue, and relations with his daughter are strained. Worse still, there are troubling rumors surrounding the man she’s about to marry. When the truth behind the whispers explodes into violence, Salander emerges as Blomkvist’s last hope.

A pulse-pounding thriller, The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons sees Salander and Blomkvist navigating a world of conspiracy and betrayal, old enemies and new friends, ice-bound wilderness and the global corporations that threaten to tear it apart.

©2023 Karin Smirnoff (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Lisbeth Salander is back—and maybe better than ever. Karin Smirnoff’s take is both respectful of the past and ready for the future—altogether remarkable.”—Lee Child, author of No Plan B

“An absolute incident-packed thrill-ride from start to finish. Karin Smirnoff has taken on the legacy of a legend and done the series justice.”—Jo Spain, author of The Perfect Lie

“Smirnoff’s writing is wonderfully vivid. If books were birds, this would be a raptor diving towards its prey with brutal agility.”—Anna Bailey, author of Where the Truth Lies

Disappointed

I agree with the others, this author doesn’t know the main character nor sufficiently explains various secondary plot points. However keeping the same narrator is a plus.

could have been better

I have been a big fan of the Lizbeth Salendar books and have enjoyed listening to them repeatedly. Like other readers I was disappointed. The story development was disjointed and hard to follow. The characters were not fully developed or as vivid as in the Stieg Larson books. The flashbacks also were confusing. Would be willing to give this writer another try. I think I will listen to it again. It might come together a bit more.

Needs to end.

I like the series a lot and was new to it. The first three was peak and the following 3 books were good too, but this is the worst of them. The story is Very disjointed, with lots of sub plots that seem to happen out of nowhere and make it hard to follow. It feels very choppy with things happening because the writer says it happens rather than the story unfolding naturally like in the previous books.
The characters seem lost and different, they’re losing their charm.
I just want it to end.

Not the best in the series

I have loved this series but the writing for this book was not good. It is scattered and becomes incoherent at some places. If this is where we are in the series, let’s not do another book.

This Series is getting a little long in the tooth.

This book had potential, but the needed a lot of structure. The opening was too long, providing a lot of useless information, unless it’s going to play a part in the next story. While the author may disagree, it felt like there was a lot of filler being added to the story with no thought as to how this would play out later. Most disappointing was the portrayal of Lisbeth, where it felt as though we were following a stranger.

I want to like it but

Hard to follow narrative. Not as strong of a story as I had hoped, and I had low expectations already.

Frustrating!

First things first. Simon Vance, as always, AWESOME.
Now the book. I was so excited the series is being revived until I started listening to it. It was so confusing and disjointed. The premise had potential but I was lost half the time... the choice of names.. it felt like half the characters had the same name, it was just two but it felt like half. I did not enjoy it, couldn't wait for it to end. I understand it's very hard to match the genius of Stieg Larson but you gotta at least meet us half way. Maybe I'll relisten to the original 3 to erase this experience :-)

3rd author of the series - and it shows

Simon Vance is one of my all-time favorite narrators. Without his work on this book, I would have never finished it.

I preordered this book because I like the series. I also failed to notice that there was a new author attached to the work. I don't know why we're onto a 3rd person, but there was an obvious downshift in quality.

If they don't change back to the previous author (David Lagercrantz), this will be my final read for the series.

Shouldn't be part of the series

If it weren't for the familiar names and places, you'd never know this was part of the Dragon Tattoo series. Did the author even read the last books??? Lisbeth and Mikael are not the same characters we all loved and latched onto in the previous books, their bite, edginess, darkness, it's all gone, replaced with fluff and filler. It also seems like the author didn't want to research computer technology and terms for Lisbeth's character, and instead let Plague do all the tech work so the author wouldn't have to explain any computer work being done. Karen's Lisbeth is more concerned about having physical relationships than being a tech wiz, searching for answers, and kicking ass like Steig's Lisbeth. Like everyone else I thought the book was lame, lazy, and thoroughly disappointing.

Feels forced

Please don’t stretch this series out past it’s ability to follow an interesting and somewhat original story line. Some of the plot twists are ridiculous and have no supporting story or detail behind them.

Pretty simple. Either make it better or stop. Don’t ruin these wonderful characters.