Swede and Lowdown

One thing that held no interest for Larsson was food. None of the characters in Millenium ever has what could be called a decent meal, and apparently the author didn't either. He didn't drink much, but he lived on takeout pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, coffee, and cigarettes. He died an American death. "He knew that he couldn't keep living this way—that's why he wrote the books, as a kind of insurance policy," says Daniel Poohl, now editor of Larsson's Expo magazine. "He kept meaning to kick back when he got rich."

It wasn't Larsson who got rich, and now it doesn't appear likely that Gabrielsson will, either. The two had no children and never married, and the author left no will; Gabrielsson says the couple's paper lives were kept separate so none of Stieg's enemies could link her to him. Larsson's entire estate—about €24 million and counting—went to his father, Erland, and his brother, Joakim, who both still live an Ikea lifestyle in Umea. The two created an annual Stieg Larsson prize of €20,000 for any person or organization that combats right-wing extremism and granted the first one to Expo. The rest of the money just sits there.

Gabrielsson says that as Larsson's common-law spouse, she should have a legal right to the estate, and has been fighting to change Sweden's law to that effect. There is no communication between her and Larsson's family, but the father and brother have told neutral parties that they are open to talking about giving her a share. Gabrielsson says she's interested in justice, not money. All of Scandinavia has taken sides; depending on who you talk to, Gabrielsson has either been screwed out of what's rightfully hers, or she's been incredibly stubborn and uncompromising. She's currently writing her own book, The Year After Stieg, in which she will undoubtedly supply an earful. "I could shut up but I would be ashamed," says Gabrielsson. "Stieg used to ask me why I always had to take the narrow, twisty road instead of the highway."

One not unimportant footnote: Larsson left behind almost 300 pages of a fourth manuscript. Erland and Joakim Larsson own the rights and believe it should never see print, but Gabrielsson's got the hard copy. She said the Larssons agreed to let her stay in the apartment she shared with Stieg if she turned over his laptop—which she has so far refused to do. She remains in her home, with the laptop.

The Millennium series follows in a long and grumpy tradition of crime writing in Scandinavia, and particularly Sweden. "I thought the whole Nordic crime phenomenon was dying out, and then along comes Stieg Larsson," says Håkan Nesser, who's been writing Swedish crime novels since 1993. Unlike American private dicks, who serve up snappy, cynical repartee, or English supersleuths who deploy dazzling puzzle-solving skills, the stereotypical Scandinavian shamus broods on the futility of fighting crime at all and the deeper ills that make society the real bad guy. He drinks, gets divorced, refuses to shave. The husband and wife team of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö created the mold with their grim Martin Beck novels in the '60s and '70s, and it's been downhill from there.

Henning Mankell, creator of small-town inspector Kurt Wallander, was Sweden's reigning king of crime before Larsson. As played by Kenneth Branagh in a three-episode BBC series, Wallander is a stubbly, jowly mess. "You're supposed to be depressed and suicidal," says Nesser, whose own inspector Van Veeteren fits right into the Nordic groove—a "classic, not very sympathetic guy." In Woman With Birthmark, recently published in the U.S. and the U.K., Van Veeteren takes on a female serial killer whose victims did a very bad thing to her mother years before. It's no accident that readers can't decide who to root for.

Larsson's three tales, if not their heroine, adhere to the unwritten codes of Viking crime. Whoever the particular perps in Millennium turn out to be, the real villains are all "isms"—Nazism, sexism, racism. They lurk within the computer hard drives of Sweden's comfy elite like some kind of virtual unconscious. But there's no firewall that can protect anyone's nasty secrets from Lisbeth Salander.

Thanks to Larsson, the global publishing door is suddenly wide open to Swedish crime writers. Liza Marklund, a bestseller in Scandinavia, is currently writing a book with U.S. crime behemoth James Patterson. Swedish criminal-defense-lawyer-turned-novelist Jens Lapidus won notice in 2006 with Snabba Cash (Easy Money), which Pantheon will publish in the U.S. next summer. Jo Nesbø, who hails from neighboring Norway, is touted as another up-and-comer with his Harry Hole detective series. "It's a lot easier for me to get publishers in the U.S. and the U.K. to pick up the phone these days," says Norstedts' Eva Gedin. "Everyone is looking for the next Stieg Larsson." Nesser, for one, isn't getting too excited. "Twenty years ago, we had a lot of great tennis players; now we've got none," he says. "For the past five years, it's been crime writers. This will pass." How very Swedish.

© 2009