Quercus to publish fifth in Larsson's Millennium series

Quercus has bought the fifth book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium series, due to publish in 2017.

The fifth in the series will be written by Swedish author David Lagercrantz, who took on the franchise after Larsson’s death and wrote the fourth book. The Bookseller reported Lagercrantz would be writing two further novels in the franchise in October 2015.

The new title will be published in autumn next year, priced £19.99. No further details about the plot of the fifth volume have yet been released.

Fourth in the series, The Girl in the Spider’s Web by Lagercrantz published in August 2015. It has sold 214,198 copies for £1.8m to date. The hardback sold 100,681 copies and the paperback is at 11th in the Top 50 this week, having sold 86,261 copies to date.

Larsson's long-term partner, Eva Gabrielsson, who lived with Larsson for 32 years, has previously criticised the continuation of the series. The Guardian reported she told news agency AFP last year: "The worst thing is how saddened Stieg would have been. He never let anyone work on his literary texts. He would have been furious. Who knows, maybe he’ll send a lightning bolt at the book launch.”

Larsson died in 2004, shortly after he submitted the manuscript for the third volume in the trilogy to his publisher, Norstedts.

Since his death, the series, excluding Lagercrantz's addition, has sold 6.1m copies for £34m. First in the series The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sold 1.7m copies in paperback since 2008 and is the fifth bestselling crime title since records began. The series is the second-bestselling crime series of all time in the UK, after Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon titles.