Author:Robert Galbraith
A welcome new arrival in the ongoing Cormoran Strike series, this one is a real doorstop of a book, running to just over a thousand pages. This is now the sixth novel, so naturally it works best if you’re familiar with the earlier ones and the back histories of the two main characters as this story shows some intriguing developments in their ongoing personal and professional relationships. The plot centres on the murder of the co-creator of a very successful You Tube animation linked to a computer game, the ‘Ink Black Heart’ of the title, shortly after the detective agency had turned away her plea for help. The ensuing story centres around the search for the real identity of the mysterious online figure ‘Anomie’, who has been trolling the victim relentlessly in the run up to the crime. There’s a complex web of online aliases, family conflicts and business interests to untangle before the truth gradually begins to emerge. This is, as I mentioned, a very long read with lengthy sections laid out as online group chats where it’s sometimes a little difficult to keep track of who’s who, and overall the book might have been improved by a bit of judicious pruning here and there, although I guess when you’re as big a name as JK Rowling you do tend to get your own way in these things. Having said that, the plot is intriguing and engaging with the clues to the eventual resolution of the mystery all there if you can spot them among the reams of text, and by and large for such a hefty volume the pages do fly by surprisingly quickly. An enjoyable novel then, and one where the author keeps the strong page turning plot rattling along relentlessly, tempting the reader to press on for just one more chapter before bedtime.
Length of Read:Epic
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Crime/detective thrillers, earlier books in the series.
One thing you’ve learned
A person hounded by online trolls – art imitating the author’s life perchance?
I’ve got Troubled Blood lined up here for a read in the near future – so now that there’s another one out I’d better get my skates on before they make the TV version of that previous one, which is also quite a tome. I really enjoyed the TV versions of the early Strike yarns when it kicked off a few years back in the pre-Covid world, but I want to read the book before it’s there on the screen to tempt me.
The Harry Potter series made great, ok highly enjoyable, films but the novels themselves were, after all the hype, a mighty disappointment (admittedly I fear I was not the target audience).
I’ve avoided the Cormoran Strike books for that very reason. Could I be, shock and michty horror, Wrong?
Haven’t read this one yet, but I’ve enjoyed all the others. Troubled Blood was the best of all I thought.
I found that the HP books got longer and worse as the series progressed (the movies were the opposite, they got better), and my feeling is that this is because JKR stopped being edited by anyone as she got so successful. I haven’t read the Cormoran Strike novels, but I think her tendency towards prolixity is her main fault so I imagine that’s the case here, too.