The Spine COLLECTOR

FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS, A mysterious figure HAS BEEN STEALING BOOKS BEFORE THEIR RELEASE. IS IT espionage? REVENGE? A trap? OR A COMPLETE waste OF TIME?

- REEVES WIEDEMAN with LILA SHAPIRO

ON THE MORNING of March 1, 2017, Catherine Mörk and Linda Altrov Berg were in the offices of Norstedts, a book publisher in Sweden, when they received an unusual email. A colleague in Venice was asking for a top­secret document: the unpublished manuscript of the forth­ coming fifth book in Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” series. The books, which fol­ low hacker detective Lisbeth Salander, have sold more than 100 million copies. David Lagercrantz, another Swedish writ­ er, had taken over the series after Larsson’s death, and his latest—The Man Who Chased His Shadow—was expected to be one of the publishing events of the year.

Norstedts was guarding the series closely. Lagercrantz wrote his first “Millennium” book on a computer with no connection to the internet and delivered the manuscript on paper, at which point Norstedts mailed a single copy to each of the book’s inter­ national publishers. With the new title, Norstedts wanted to streamline the process—Lisbeth Salander’s publisher, they figured, should be able to protect itself from hackers and thieves. Mörk and Altrov Berg, who handle foreign rights at Norstedts, con­ sulted with other publishers of blockbuster books. The translators working on one of Dan Brown’s follow­ups to The Da Vinci Code, for instance, were required to work in a basement with security guards clocking trips to the bathroom. Norstedts decided to try sharing the new “Millennium” book via Hushmail, an encrypted­email service, with passwords delivered separately by phone. Everyone would have to sign an NDA.

The unusual email came from Francesca Varotto, the book’s Italian­edition editor, and arrived shortly after Norstedts sent out the manuscript: