Girl with the laptop

Stieg Larssons posthumously published thrillers yielded a fortune,a worldwide passion for Scandinavian crime fiction as well as a rash of speculation. It was revived this week after his long-time companion,Eva Gabrielsson,published the English translation of a memoir of their relationship. Interest is focussed as much on her work as on the fate of his laptop,which is in her possession and is said to contain a draft of his fourth novel. Ever since the publication of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo three years ago,Larssons intent and fate have hovered over the books. The fourth book (and reports have consistently spoken of the outlines of the fifth,sixth,perhaps even tenth books he may have left) captures all of that.

Larsson had created two of the most fascinating characters in crime fiction,the journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his unlikely fellow sleuth in tracking down right-wing extremism in contemporary Sweden,Lisbeth Salander,she of the photographic memory,superior hacking skills and dislike of human interaction. Following the surprise reception to his books in Sweden,and then around the world in translation,his literary estate came to be keenly contested: under Swedish law,his companion got nothing and all went to his brother and father. The manner of translation and sale of film rights too sparked off minor controversies over whether he may have wanted it done differently. The laptop,in which the reported fourth book resides,is with Gabrielsson. Should she be entitled to polish the manuscript? Even if,upon publication,it becomes the property of his estate? Is it really by him,a question asked even about the Millennium Trilogy? And,would it provide clues about whether he died a natural death in 2004,or was targeted by someone? Yet,one thing is uncontested: everybody likes a good sequel.