The PolyBlog

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (2022) – BR00244 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

May 14 2024

Plot or Premise

A co-creator of a popular online comic comes to Robin and Strike for help with someone who is harassing her online, days before being murdered.

What I Liked

I love the premise, with the online community, and the picture perfect depiction of some of the people in the chat room and how “dramatic” are their individual behaviours and reactions to mild suspicions and events. I don’t know if people who are not versed in online communities would find it relatable, or accessible, but I loved it, even if it breaks the fourth wall a bit. But more importantly, the scene at the end of the previous book with Cormoran and Robin out for her birthday is continued at the start of the book, and actually leads to the possibility of a kiss. And by the end, there’s a few opened eyes, if not at the same time.

What I Didn’t Like

Again, Rowling really needs an editor to take out the endless, mindless side quests. Again, long periods of time with almost nothing happening, and clocking in at more than 2x the original one in the series. I had hoped we were done with Charlotte in the previous book, but no, she’s back and causing boring crap.

The Bottom Line

Great view of an online community and the passions run deep

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (2020) – BR00243 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

May 14 2024

Plot or Premise

A cold case arrives from a woman in a pub back home (where Cormoran’s aunt lives). Her mother disappeared back in ’74 and all leads went to nought. Did she die? Did a serial killer get her? Did she take a runner?

What I Liked

I love the premise of cold cases and the ability to ferret out a small nugget from one witness that leads to a new nugget from another, etc., until you can start to find actual threads to pull and unwind the whole tapestry of mystery. This one does that in spades. The missing mother was working in a doctor’s office, and there were lots of niggly threads that could have been the reason for her disappearance. Not to mention the serial killer running around. And for backstory, you get to see Cormoran dealing with his extended family a little more personally than simply as throw-away references.

What I Didn’t Like

There seems to be an assumption that if a book is good at 400 pages, it must be awesome at twice the length. Rowling ballooned the Harry Potter series as it went on and has done the same with the Strike series. This book is more than double the size of the first in the series, and it needs serious editing. Long stretches with very little happening. And as the “case” mushrooms into larger combinations of cases, at least two of the threads read more like ridiculous happenstances than actual solutions. And the crap with Charlotte is long past its expiry date.

The Bottom Line

Deeply buried in the flotsam is a mystery dying to breathe

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (2016) – BR00242 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

May 13 2024

Plot or Premise

What does a mentally ill man claiming to have witnessed a murder twenty years before have to do with a couple of Members of Parliament and blackmail?

What I Liked

It’s a different world than the previous stories and almost reads a bit like a Victorian novel by Anne Perry. The MP, his family, the dysfunctional relationships between them, etc., are all entertaining. I liked seeing Robin go undercover and some sort of resolution of the relationship with Matthew.

What I Didn’t Like

The story starts one year after the wedding scene of the previous book, and it skips over a lot of the growing business—stuff that would have been fun to see, although it notes that Robin and Strike are not talking much about anything other than work. And there was the obligatory scene with Charlotte that has no more relevance than the crap with Matthew. The extra length to the book (almost 40% longer than the previous ones) added a lot of slippage.

The Bottom Line

Is crime-solving an Olympic event?

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (2015) – BR00241 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

May 9 2024

Plot or Premise

An old enemy of Cormoran’s wants revenge, and the opening salvo is a severed leg delivered to the office. Cormoran can narrow it to 4 likely candidates, but which one would it be?

What I Liked

Digging back into the past to see where all four are now and what they are doing is awesome. Almost like a cold case with all the immediacy of a recent dismemberment. And there is some fantastic dark humour from Cormoran that is completely appropriate for his past and equally disdained by Robin because of her past. You also get to see the agency struggle to cover all the cases as it grows its business. But the best part is that Robin and Cormoran are beginning to share their backstories.

What I Didn’t Like

The whole relationship with Matthew seems ridiculously stupid. It’s childish and petty, all of it, and while it serves as a plot device to keep Robin and Cormoran from having other thoughts, it really diminishes Robin as a full character.

The Bottom Line

Yep, Cormoran knows some nutters

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (2014) – BR00240 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

May 5 2024

Plot or Premise

Leonora Quinn wants Cormoran to find Owen, her writer husband. He’s missing, but she’s pretty sure it is just simple neglect, nothing foul. He goes off regularly but usually returns in short order, if only to be with their special needs daughter. This time? 10 days without a word, and she doesn’t want to involve the police again, as they made too big a fuss the previous time when it turned out he was just with a friend. The difference is that this time, he’s written a thinly-veiled fictionalized biography about his publishing acquaintances that has ticked off most of them, and maybe one of them was ticked off enough to do something to prevent it from being published.

What I Liked

The tell-all premise is awesome, at first at least, and the darkness of the story as it progresses is quite solid. The agent is deliciously salacious. As I read it, I kept picturing a rougher version of Harriet Sansom Harris who played the agent on Frasier. Once the story widens out into a full suspect list, it flies along at a good pace with lots of leads to follow. Plus Robin gets a bit more to do in this one.

What I Didn’t Like

The initial darkness of the story doesn’t stand up to the overall explanation at the end, almost a little banal. And there is way too much time at the start of the book trying to find a) a copy of the manuscript and b) interpreting who it is even referencing (aka the list of suspects). But what I particularly don’t enjoy is the immature romantic stylings among the main characters. Not childish, exactly, although there are aspects of that too, so much as simply no emotional or intellectual capacity to deal with the basic aspects of a relationship. With a bit of comedy, it could rise almost to farce.

The Bottom Line

Come for the mystery, stay for the publishing personalities