The Girl Who Lived Twice
ISBN: 9780857056399
Description
As Salander follows the scorched trail of her twin sister to Moscow, Blomkvist fears for her safety. He should, perhaps, be more concerned for himself. The murder of a homeless man on the streets of Stockholm has drawn him into a conspiracy that scales the heights of Everest and plunges to the depths of Russia's criminal underworld.
Reviewed on 16th August 2025
Eight years ago I read the previous book in this series, and chose to abandon it. But at some point I'd picked up the third book cheap, and it has sat slightly tauntingly on my shelf ever since. This week it decided it had waited long enough and somehow emphasised itself to me as I was looking for something to read.
It was not worth it.
This is two stories wedged together. In one, we have the journalists investigating a murder. In the other, we have the two sisters out for revenge on each other. The overlap is merely the characters, not the story. And neither story is particularly compelling. There's no sense of real drama, the thriller aspects are weak and over really quickly, the peril is boring.
The only reason I think I kept reading was the mystery aspect - trying to understand what was behind the murder at the start of the book. But I still don't think I really understand at the end. Either the conclusion was so convoluted that I lost track, or it's so simple and boring that I'm just left thinking 'Was that it?'
I should not have bothered.
