Publishers of the newest Dragon Tattoo novel took some borderline paranoid precautions to guard the book from hackers
Talk about life imitating art.
Swedish publisher Norstedts is set to publish The Girl in the Spider’s Web — the first Lisbeth Salander novel not written by author Stieg Larsson, who died in 2004 of a heart attack — on Thursday (the U.S. release is Sept. 1). But protecting the manuscript from hackers, who Norstedts expected would be especially drawn to a story about one of their own (Salander is a tech-savvy anti-heroine) led to some very cloak-and-dagger operations, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Norstedts used a code name — "Eva A" — for the project, and when new author David Lagercrantz was brought in to meet with the team about writing for the series, he was shown to a conference room in the publishing house's basement. Once Lagercrantz signed on, he was required to do all of his online research on one computer while writing the actual novel on a separate computer, which he was instructed to keep free from any internet connection.
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The finished manuscript — which The Wall Street Journal notes was turned in only as a hard copy, of course — was kept safely locked in a cabinet, the key to which one of Norstedts’ editors periodically moved to different hiding places around the office.
This book better be good.
