Troubled Blood (A Cormoran Strike Novel Book 5)

Be prepared to commit some time reading this lengthy fifth mystery showcasing the exploits of the private detectives Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. The story concerns a woman, Anna, determined to find out what happened to her mother, Margot Bamborough, who disappeared in 1974. Anna was just a baby, but now she wants answers. Anna is hopeful that Strike and Robin, fresh from other successful cases, will do what the police couldn’t do decades before. Although not one to eagerly accept cold cases, Strike finds Margot’s disappearance intriguing. Taking the case enables Strike to give Robin more responsibility displaying his trust in her investigative skills. Strike has an ulterior motive. His frequent absences of late related to the tending and care of his dying aunt has increased the distance both mentally and physically from Robin. He is trying to deal with his grief over his aunt, a heretofore suppressed romantic interest with Robin, a mentally unbalanced ex-fiancé, a demanding sister, and an avoidance of the sudden demands from his rock-star father, who is trying to insinuate himself back in Strike’s life. Robin, too, has more than enough on her plate. She is going through a contentious divorce, dealing with past trauma from an assault in a previous case, exhausted beyond measure with running cases and managing the employee assignments in Strike’s absence, and grappling with her own confused feelings for Strike. These overwhelming demands on both detectives almost make getting back to working on an actual case together a relief. They have plenty of suspects. Margot’s vanishing was thought to be the work of a serial killer, the Essex Butcher, who abducted women nearby at the time. Although the killer has been captured and is serving time for several known abductions and murders of women, it is not clear that he was the culprit in Margot’s case. More than a few people didn’t like Margot and had reason to do her harm. Including co-workers, ex-boyfriends, and patients. Robin and Strike find the notes from the first detective on the case, and they seem to be almost hieroglyphics. The man had a nervous breakdown before he was shortly taken off the case. His notes are filled with cryptic zodiac symbols, which he thought would lead to answers in Margot’s case. The two detectives become less and less convinced that she was a victim of the Essex Butcher. They think that if the killer is still alive, he is someone they’ve interviewed and who is anxious to keep them from his discovery, whatever it takes. As usual in the Cormoran Strike series, Robert Galbraith (wink, wink) has written an engaging, meaty detective story that pulls the reader into Strike’s and Robin’s personal lives without skimping on the mystery. This series gets better and better. I recommend this book to true mystery lovers who don’t mind getting cozy with a good long book that offers a satisfying plot and well-drawn characters.

The accusations surrounding 'Troubled Blood' are totally and utterly absurd to anybody who has actually read the book. Please don't get distracted by them. This is yet another absolutely excellent read by an extremely talented writer. I think the series is getting better and better. It's multi - layered, beautifully written and has a wonderful plot and characterisation. Strike and Robin are so well depicted; the reader anguishes, laughs and exults with them, and their developing and complex relationship is intriguing. I read a lot, and appreciate crime fiction, but it's rare to find books where it's not just the plot which is fascinating, but the quality of the writing. I loved the book and became totally engrossed in it. I found myself regretting that I don't know a lot about astrology (amazingly!), and very little about Edmund Spenser's 'The Faerie Queene', but I loved the quotes at the beginning of each chapter and will try to educate myself better on this! I also really like the BBC adaptations of these books with the excellent Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger, despite the fact that the stories obviously become simplified and pared down. 'Troubled Blood' will be an extra challenge with its huge cast of characters all intricately entwined in this gripping and wonderfully satisfying story! I usually write book reviews on the UK Amazon site, because I'm British and they're often reviews of books written by UK authors. However, I read them on my Kindle, and as I live it Italy I have to buy the books from Amazon.com. (That's so annoying and geographical restrictions seem absurd when it's all digital, but that's another debate.) I couldn't post my review on UK website as there is such a storm around JK Rowling, that Amazon has been forced to only publish from 'verified purchasers', hence my posting here. So, true 'verified' readers, if you haven't read the book yet, make sure you've got a few clear days in front of you for a long and really satisfying read!

Anything by her is great.

Kitap elime hasarsız ulaştı. Teşekkürler.

At more than 900 pages and over 30 hours of audiobook (which is how I completed it), "Troubled Blood" involves quite a commitment, but repays that commitment with a twisting, turning narrative that never flags. Some of the length can be attributed to a considerable amount of backstory, which might come across as padding to existing fans of the Cormoran Strike series, but is invaluable to new readers. I suspect Rowling (the author behind the Galbraith pseudonym) anticipated that this book would attract new readers to the series. Certainly it did me. The book is long, but it is not slow-paced or languorous in any way. What I would describe it as is: painstaking. This is not the hour-long TV episode of a cold case investigation. The reader follows Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott through a dogged pursuit of leads, dead ends, long-dead witnesses and broken lives, which feels more realistic than than tied-up-in-an-hour TV episodes. And it is a testament to Rowling/Galbraith's skill as a writer that this painstaking investigation holds the reader's interest through many hours. No doubt everyone has thrashed over the "controversy" about the book, which was a total beat-up generated by a misleading review in a right-wing newspaper. But once more for those in the back row: THIS BOOK IS NOT TRANSPHOBIC. There are no trans characters in the book. The serial killer originally assumed to be the murderer of the missing woman was not trans and was not even a cross-dresser. He seems to have occasionally used disguises or put on a false "camp" persona to put his victims at ease, thinking he was harmless. If this character makes you think of trans women, YOU are the transphobe. That said, Rowling has clearly laced this book with a number of details that hint at her disapproval of "woke" ideas about gender and politics more generally (along with her disapproval of Scottish nationalism, which is if anything even more blatant in the text). For a start, in a book where almost every character is three-dimensional and in some way flawed, the only characters that come across wholly positively are the daughter of the missing woman and the daughter's female partner. As anyone who has watched the UK gender debates for any period of time will realise, many proponents of gender identity would infer a pro-lesbian message (especially one that was completely inessential to the plot, which this is) as being an anti-trans "dog whistle", so it doesn't surprise me that Rowling is still being denounced for this book despite the complete silence on anything to do with transgender people. Even more blatant, though, are the multiple points in the plot where Rowling is clearly mocking the idea that "sex work is [just] work". Whether it's the entitled, self-absorbed young students who impose on Robyn and her flatmate while en route to a "Slut Walk" protest, or the elderly former prostitute mocking a past social worker who had adhered to the "sex work is work" idea, these episodes are also "dog whistles" by Rowling registering disapproval of woke views. (The more obnoxious of the students is even a male with a beard, which is basically a trope for woke Social Justice Warriors.) Running through the whole book, especially the parts written from Robin Ellacott's point of view, is a painstaking evisceration of how some men treat women extremely badly. From the murders by the serial killer Creek, to the casual dehumanisation perpetrated by many of the other male characters, "Troubled Blood" is replete with episodes showing what women encounter and, often, put up with. This, too, will probably be none-too-pleasing for those who have denounced the book. In short: if you like carefully plotted, intricate murder mysteries, you will enjoy this book. If your identity is bound up in social justice and gender identity, you will probably notice that the author is ever so delicately having a go at your views, and you will hate it. Either way, I will bet you won't work out who the real killer is until the very end. Recommended! (Edited to add Robin Ellacott's first name now that I've gone back to check if it was Robin or Robyn. Problem with only using the audiobook version!)

An intricate mystery with plenty of twists and turns.

Cormoran Strike gets hired to solve a decades old disappearance case, after an initial botched investigation by the police. After a chance meeting with the prospective client whilst visiting his ailing aunt in Cornwall, a fire is lit within Strike and the hunt begins. So starts another mesmerising, page-turning, utterly captivating mystery from Galbraith, that may just be the best of the series yet. We fall into the world of horoscopes, tarot cards and signs of the zodiac, as Strike and Robin diligently work their way through clues, witnesses and suspects, trying to find their way through the maze of untruths, lost causes and forgotten facts. The journey we are brought on is so smooth and joyous that the 900 pages were a pleasure from start to finish and I almost wished it were longer at times so that I wouldn’t have to put the book away. The quality of writing and the editing are what make this book so easy to read. There is rarely an unnecessary passage. All the while a sense of atmosphere is ever present, as is character development, which makes you all the more invested in how everything will play out. The back and forth between Robin and Strike is one of the linchpins to this whole series and Galbraith really ramps it up in this instalment, to, surely, every fans pleasure. This is a series that I find just gets better and better with each book (though I was not the biggest fan of Career of Evil) and I will eagerly await the next one too.