Queen of Tartan Noir to take on Tattoo Girl

COMING to a book store soon: The Girl With The Thistle Tattoo. Lisbeth Salander, the gothic heroine behind the best-selling novels of Stieg Larsson is to be given a literary makeover by a Scottish crime writer.

Denise Mina, who has been described as “the Queen of Tartan Noir” has been selected by the literary estate of the Swedish author, who died in 2004, to adapt the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and its two sequels, into a series of six graphic novels to be published by DC Comics.

The “Millennium Trilogy”, as it is known, has already sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, including three million in Britain, and a major Hollywood remake of the book will premiere in London this week. Mina’s first book is due out in March, followed by The Girl Who Played with Fire in 2013 and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest in 2014.

Mina said she was “delighted” to have been chosen to refashion the books for a new audience. “There are going to be six graphic novels, two for each book. It will take two to three years and it just means I will be writing comics when I’m not writing novels.”

Dan DiDio, co-publisher of DC Entertainment said: “The intricate characters and stories Larsson created in the Millennium Trilogy are a perfect match for the graphic novel format, where we can bring Lisbeth Salander to life in entirely new, visually compelling ways. It’s a distinct honour to work on a story that is already so popular with millions of readers around the world.”

Joakim Larsson, younger brother of the late author, said: “Stieg always liked comics and it will be exciting to see the unforgettable characters he created come to life on the comics page.”

The global success of the books, and the three Swedish films that have already been released, rests on the character of Salander, a brilliant bisexual computer hacker and surveillance agent who assists the journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, on the trail of a serial killer.

Mina is the author of nine novels with strong female characters, including Field of Blood, which was recently adapted into a television drama by the BBC, and she is also a bestseller in Sweden. She said she was a great admirer of the Larsson novels but planned to make the character of Salander tougher and less attractive.