Prospectors who can smell money. Big money, or they would have stayed in the sun. Like diviners, they put their ear to the granite and say, “Here lie such extraordinary riches that no-one will be able to refuse.” When the fun is over, they are already far away. Far from poisoned watercourses and contaminated ground, far from unemployed miners whose lungs have breathed in silica, asbestos and diesel fumes.

In the latest instalment of the Millennium series, spring returns to Sweden’s far north, but a night-time explosion destroys a historic river bridge in the forest, shocks the residents of the small town of Gasskas and leaves the police playing catch-up in a fast-moving situation. Natural resources in the region are being shamelessly exploited by shadowy multinationals and their local government puppets, opposed only by Lisbeth Salander’s niece Svala and a group of environmental activists. What begins as a protest spins out of control when a young journalist is found murdered. Lisbeth’s long-term sidekick, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, not in the best of health, is about to move north from Stockholm to become the editor at of the local newspaper and be near his daughter and grandson. He  unravels a story that has the makings of an explosive scandal. Lisbeth, meanwhile, is desperate to track down her old hacker friend, Plague, who has vanished. When it becomes clear that both she and Svala are on a secret underworld hit list, Lisbeth decides to stake everything on keeping Svala safe.