'THE GIRL WHO LIVED TWICE'.........DRAGGIN' TATTOOS.......

The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Langercrantz (2019)    Don't want to waste too much time on this, having already wasted the hours it took to read it........

                I'm no big fan of other authors carrying on with the characters created by deceased writers....

                I've managed to tolerate those Ace Atkins attempts to duplicate the late Robert B. Parker's Spencer novels.......only because, like millions of other readers, I'm still head over heels in love with Spencer, Susan, Hawk and the Spencer universe of the private eye's friends and foes......

                But Atkins over writes.......and his overreaching tries at Spencer's killer one liners tends to ring hollow.....

                "The Girl Who Lived Twice" is supposedly the last, and easily the worst of David Lagercrantz's revivals of the late Stieg Larrson's Lisbeth Salander........super-hacker, relentless avenging angel and the scourge of corrupt, evil and deviant men everywhere.....

                  What a cheat this book is, what a worthless rip-off.......

                 In a Lisbeth Salander story, all you really want......is Lisbeth and more of her. All the rest is window dressing.

                 But this tedious piece of crap gives you about 20% of Salander and 70% of  some convoluted, godawful plot about the mysterious death of an equally mysterious homeless guy........

                  The homeless guy's death leads journalist Mikael Blomkvist to an almost impossible-to-follow, overly twisted mess involving a doomed Mt. Everest expedition loaded up with spies and counterspies.....(don't ask.). As if anyone cares, the Homeless Guy/Everest thing grinds on through the entire book.......

                   Once and a while, the book gets around to the whole reason anyone would pick it up in the first place......Lisbeth Salander mixing it up with her evil twin Camilla, who commands a gang of evil bikers and assorted Russian scumbags.........and our fave Manic Pixie also finds the time to go all Lisbeth on some wife beater's ass......(let's just say she irons out his problems....heh, heh, heh...).

                   I'll give it this much, Lagercrantz does finally deliver a movie-ready showdown between Lisbeth and Camilla........(you can almost hear him sniffing after a film deal......)

                      BQ memo to any producer who contemplates turning this into a movie.........the very first thing you do.....ditch the homeless guy and all the Mt. Everest garbage...(unless you put Lisbeth on Everest, duking it out with the Abominable Snowman),,,,,,,,this ain't rocket science folks......IN A LISBETH SALANDER STORY, ALL WE GODDAMN WANNA SEE IS LISBETH KICK ASS!!  IS THAT SO  HARD TO COMPREHEND?????

                   The book? 1 star (*).....only if you're a hardcore Salander completist.... wait for the movie...and only if they follow BQ's instructions...