The Girl in the Spider's Web - David Lagercrantz

I'm not having an especially good run reading series books.  I complained a bit about The Murder of Mary Russell and I've just finished this book, The Girl in the Spider's Web, a continuation of the Lisbeth Salander (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) series.

I loved the original three books in the series, the ones written by Stieg Larsson.  I loved them so much that I ordered the last two from England to get them before they were available here.

This book was not written by Larsson.  The main characters are back:  Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, Erika Berger, and others.  Millennium, the magazine that Blomkvist and Berger own has been bought by another magazine that wants to change the focus.  They're sorry they sold and are thinking of ways to buy it back.

The Girl in the Spider's Web is about internet surveillance.  It's about the NSA spying on private citizens, on other foreign spy agencies, and on corporations and private small businesses and innovators.  It's about all those agencies spying on each other.  And on us.  

A brilliant professor who has been working on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is murdered in front of his autistic son.  The boy has never spoken.  Now the people who killed the father realize that the boy can identify the killer.  The boy has an amazing gift for detailed, photographic drawing.

Lisbeth identifies with the boy, who has been abused.  She takes it upon herself to keep him safe, taking him with her and hiding him from everyone.  There are leaks in the police and the NSA.  She doesn't trust anyone.

Lisbeth's twin sister shows up as the lead of an evil empire.  She's out to get Lisbeth and she'll go through anyone who gets in her way.

The last part of the book was exciting, but I think that the characters lacked depth.  They seemed like cartoons of themselves.  It's hard for me to put my finger on it, but I just wasn't as engaged as I was with the others.