Gritty thriller set in Sweden – The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons

Submitted: 13th October 2023

The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons – Karin Smirnoff

This title is the latest in the Lisbeth Salander series. Now, these were top novels in Sweden and in many countries around the world but they were never my favourites. I tried learning Swedish from them at first and realised I would not need many of the words within in every day conversations.

So, I was intrigued and a little nervous to read this. Haven’t read the Swedish so went straight into the translated version. Sarah Death is a top SWE translator so I wasn’t worried!

The original title is a little different in Swedish -Havsörnens skrik (The Sea Eagle’s Cry)

BookTrail the locations in The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons

Gritty thriller set in Sweden - The Girl in the Eagle's Talons

Boarding Pass Information : The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons

Destination : Northern Sweden

Author guide: Karin Smirnoff

Genre: Thriller, gory

Food and drink to accompany: Nothing you might be sick

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The Book Trail The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons – The Book Trail

A novel to transport you deep in Northern Sweden

The novel is set in Gasskas, a fictional town in northern Sweden. Plenty of remote and destitute locations with no people around. Perfect for a novel that looks at criminal goings on in windfarm projects. There’s a lot of good scene setting as we are also in the land of Sami reindeer. Quite a mix but I enjoyed being somewhere I haven’t been before in a novel.

In the land of the wind farms, there are plenty of criminal investigations to get your teeth into. Corruption is everywhere – even in the coldest parts of the world it would seem. Criminal gang is trying to keep money from projects for themselves. There’s corrupt officials and even some sort of Hell’s Angels. There’s one criminal mastermind that I particularly hated.

I did like the way the action had moved from Stockholm since it is so closely linked to the earlier ‘The Girl …’ books. Mikael comes up north for a wedding and since he’s not working at the moment, he is in the mood for an investigation or two. Lisbeth is due to become a guardian to her half-brother’s daughter. With him now dead, Svala now needs someone to care for her. More so than most as she has a condition which means that she feels no pain. Might come in handy later on if she turns out like Elisabeth I thought.

I did struggle with some of this. It is very, very dark and violent. It felt over the top to me. Kudos to Sarah Death as the translation flowed well. There were a lot of threads left untied at the end so there are going to be more books in the series.

Wonder what Svala will turn out to be? A mini Lisbeth Salander?