Swedish book publisher Norstedts announced that it has hired David Lagercrantz to write a sequel to the popular, but lengthy Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy that was by Stieg Larsson.
The publisher said the release date for the continuing adventures of Mikael Blomqvist and Lisbeth Salander was set for August 2015, reports The Associated Press. The fourth book follows on the heels of the successful trilogy that has sold over 75 million books.
Eva Gedin, head of publishing, noted that the book will be completely new and feature no material from Larsson's unfinished fourth book. Larsson passed away in 2004.
The reasoning behind a completely new fourth book is that Norstedts doesn't own the rights to the unfinished manuscript, Larsson's partner Eva Gabrielsson said, according to BBC News. She has also previously said that she isn't a fan of Larsson's stories being continued without him.
Author Lagercrantz commented that he was already beginning to work on the new novel. "It's terribly fun. It's a fantastic world to step into."
John-Henri Homberg, who translated a Larsson short story, said that the Swedish author was only about 120 pages from finishing the fourth manuscript. "There is supposedly a laptop somewhere, and on this supposedly is what was finished, or however much was written of the book."
image: Amazon