TROUBLED BLOOD (B PB)

There is an art to writing a good murder mystery story. Most of the times many a great artist fail to reach that end satisfactorily, but here Galbraith AKA JK Rowling does more than enough. A good mystery can hook you like no other but when the story comes to an end you get up and push on without thinking too much about the story you read, here though that's not the case. What Galbraith does best is create such a realistic ray of characters especially our erstwhile heroes, Cormoron Strike & Robin ellacott, that you find yourself truly invested not only in their life's triumphs and failures but at the same time in the investigation that somehow runs parallel to their own lives. That is a good book to read. Without giving too much away you should read this book for how the lives of our favourite duo has gone on since the end of the last book (Lethal White) and the coming loss for strike and messy divorce struggle for robin affects them as they tackle a cold case of a Doctor who disappeared without a trace 40 years ago. Her daughter hires them to understand and try and get information if she is alive or dead. Unreliable and dogey witnesses and some dead ones since the case is 4 decades old, botched police investigation as the lead investigator had a mental breakdown during the initial stages of the investigation and the occult notebook he left behind that plays a vital role. A psychopath serial killer who is the fictional equivalent of Ted Bundy, new agency detectives plus the whole in office politics with masculine toxicity and some scenes if not the best and gorish galbraith has written yet. Definitely a page turner full of in depth character insecurity for our will-they-won't-they couple and complex plot that just might surprise you. An ambitious project handled my a master.

Book # 5 in the Cormoran Strike series which got released with a tremendous amount of hullabaloo regards JK Rowling’s views about trans people and honestly, if you are like me, hiding away under the rocks and skimming over anything related to the issue in question and have no interest whatsoever in knowing about such views, then Cormoran Strike series is definitely worth a read for mystery lovers. Troubled Blood, however, I would recommend to the fans of series rather than all and sundry. It can surely be read as a stand-alone coz the author does give a bit of background of past events but like all series, there are incidents in Robin’s and Strike’s life that can be understood only if read in order, like for example, why Strike has trouble in completely cutting off the toxic relationship with his manipulative ex-Charlotte? The crime drama which has captured the heart of millions has so much going for it in this novel, but there are also segments of the story that bored me to death. The central mystery is a cold case that of a young doctor who simply disappeared after a day of work. 40 yrs. of torment and grief, her daughter Anna is looking for some measure of closure which is why she gives Strike and Robin a year to manage something out of nothing. Consequently, we get to see the events that occur in Robin’s and Strike’s life due the course of a year and there’s more or less a pressure cooker situation in Strike’s life with his aunt’s illness, Charlotte’s machinations, his estranged father and siblings trying to reconnect and Strike has no emotional maturity to handle the compounding problems. Robin, meanwhile, has her own share of worries, majorly handling the responsibility of the firm in the absence of Strike, a delayed divorce with Mathew, unwanted attention from a colleague, and struggling with life decisions at 30 years of age. I loved how Robin is so forthright in acknowledging the fact that with the kind of job that she’s involved in, marriage and children are probably not going to be the priority in her life. The novel's basic premise weaving together a missing person case with the butchery of a serial killer is remarkable, even though the pacing is slow and the author does go into detailed descriptions of the personal difficulties faced by Strike and Robin which made for some fascinating reading. What put me off was the descriptive astrology and tarot card study. It is being said the previous cop had a breakdown and was using these as a means to uncover the killer and Strike and Robin try to decipher the hidden madness inside the symbols and diagrams but honestly, I think it could have been achieved without the additional 100 or 200 pages on the subject. Anyways, the series is definitely growing in strength, my only wish that the mystery element has a little more thrilling aspects added to it in this labyrinthine plot of myriad clues and hidden mirages. I am sure that we haven’t had the last of Charlotte and that it would take another 2 books in the series for any development in the relationship between Strike and Robin. 4 stars for the brilliantly devised and convoluted story which has its threads spread out like a maze and serpentine complexity that boggles the reader’s mind.

A captivating novel which keeps you hooked, though it seems a bit over stretched at times. But nonetheless, it is totally worth it.

A book that is very rewarding in re-reads as well. We have known that JKR( Robert Galbraith) has been a great mystery writer for a very long time now but the way she keeps laying clues and misleads us is truly masterful.

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.

Un sacré tour de force ! Agatha Christie s'était lancée dans ce défi de résoudre une énigme du passé. Ici, c'est 40 ans qui se sont écoulés depuis la disparition mystérieuse et inexpliquée du Dr Margot B. qui a quitté son cabinet de médecine générale pour rejoindre une amie dans un pub voisin. Elle n'y est jamais arrivée et personne ne l'a vue. La police a bien enquêté, sans résultat. Il faut dire qu'un redoutable tueur en série sévissait alors, dans le même quartier.. mais celui-ci finalement identifié et embastillé niera toujours avoir agressé Margot. Alors ? Notre duo de choc, Strike et Robin vont passer une année à remonter les pistes, fermer les portes, .. Le résultat est un gros pavé, mais surtout une enquête minutieuse, consciencieuse, démoralisante avec des témoins qui n'existent plus. Mais l'ardeur à tenter d'éclairer le mystère est le fil conducteur de ce nouveau roman. Et enfin la langue, ou plutôt les langues, car Robert Galbraith (aka JKR) réussit à traduire les accents, cockney, écossais, etc.. Il faut prononcer les mots dans sa tête en lisant pour apprécier. Une oeuvre majeure dans le genre et une réussite.

I read this book on my kindle so didn't realise how long it was until I saw some of the reviews on here - all I was aware of was a delightful experience that pleasingly went on for rather longer than with the average novel. I've read all the books in this series. I appreciate the writing style and am particularly enjoying the development of the relationship between the two main characters. To me, this book seems to be the best of the five so far, encompassing many interesting themes and a complex mystery which I completely failed to solve, so top marks for that! Having said that, I don't think this is a perfect book - I found the many references to astrology rather a waste of time - I could be wrong, but I don't think they were in any way pivotal to the plot. I spent quite a long time trying to take in details of the zodiac and which character was what sign etc., and trying to make out the details of the diagrams, which are very difficult to read on a kindle - ended up taking photos of them and then expanding them on my phone in order to be able to see them properly - all a complete waste of time I fear because I don't think any of them had any bearing at all on the who-did-it plot. I also find the crime details in the Strike novels rather too graphic for my taste - for examle, I think it's sufficient to say someone is a serial killer and torturer without specifying exact details of the tortures meted out. Nevertheless, I have to give the book five stars - it's such an excellent read (in my case genuinely un-put-down-able). Oh, and by the way, just to reaffirm something that's been said in other reviews (and this is not a spoiler) - the serial killer is not trans - he's unequivocally heterosexual but occasionally uses female clothes as a device to fool his victims. Before reading this book I had nothing against trans people and I still don't have anything against them :-)