Ray’s first recommendation for 2024 is The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons. The seventh in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, begun by Stieg Larsen, but you don’t have to have read the others to be drawn in by this thriller.

After Stieg died, David Lagercranz picked up the franchise; now Karin Smirnoff has been appointed to write the next three. She doesn’t disappoint. The punk-goth-computer hacking heroine Lisbeth Salander is back, with the investigative journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, whom she is constantly having to save. And we meet Lisbeth’s protege.

Perfect for the beach. I read it in two days.

— Ray

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