Stieg Larsson (1954 to 2004) was a Swedish journalist and crime writer whose Millennium novels, about the hacker Lisbeth Salander and the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist, were all published after his death. He completed three books, beginning with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, and the series has since been continued by David Lagercrantz and Karin Smirnoff.
Larsson was born in Västerbotten in northern Sweden and lived with his grandparents near the village of Bjursele until he was nine. He worked as a graphic designer at the news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå from 1977 to 1999, and spent his spare time researching right-wing extremism in Sweden. That research produced his first book, “Extremhögern”, in 1991. He helped found the Expo Foundation and became editor of its magazine, Expo, in 1995.
He began the first Millennium novel in the summer of 2002 and planned a series of ten. The Swedish publisher Norstedts accepted the books, but Larsson died of a heart attack on 9 November 2004, aged 50, before any of them had been printed. The three novels appeared in Sweden in 2005, 2006 and 2007, and in English from 2008. Blomkvist is the publisher of Millennium magazine, and Salander is a computer hacker with a photographic memory.
The first and third novels won the Glass Key award for Nordic crime fiction, and the second won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award in 2006. All three were filmed in Sweden in 2009 with Noomi Rapace as Salander and Michael Nyqvist as Blomkvist. David Fincher directed an American version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” in 2011, starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig, and “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” followed in 2018 with Claire Foy. By May 2019 the series had sold over 100 million copies worldwide.
In 2013 Norstedts commissioned David Lagercrantz to continue the series, and he wrote three novels published between 2015 and 2019. The publisher Polaris acquired the rights in 2021 and Karin Smirnoff took over, setting both “The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons” and “The Girl with Ice in Her Veins” in the northern Swedish town of Gasskas. Her third book, “Kvinnor som hatar män”, was published in Sweden on 23 September 2026, and Polaris has described it as her last contribution to the series.
Publication Order of Millennium Books
| The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | 2005 |
| The Girl Who Played with Fire | 2006 |
| The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest | 2007 |
| The Girl in the Spider’s Web (By: David Lagercrantz) | 2015 |
| The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye (By: David Lagercrantz) | 2017 |
| The Girl Who Lived Twice (By: David Lagercrantz) | 2019 |
| The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons (By: Karin Smirnoff) | 2022 |
| The Girl with Ice in Her Veins (By: Karin Smirnoff) | 2024 |
| Kvinnor som hatar män (By: Karin Smirnoff) | 2026 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Extremhögern (With: Anna-Lena Lodenius) | 1991 |
| Sverigedemokraterna: Den nationella rörelsen (With: Mikael Ekman) | 2001 |
| Debatten om hedersmord: Feminism eller rasism (With: Cecilia Englund) | 2004 |
| The Expo Files | 2011 |