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shallownessAmong the blurb for 'Lethal White' is the word ‘unputdownable’ which I’d argue isn’t strictly true – it’s a whopper, so physically reading it is a challenge, but I was a touch resentful of real life demands getting in the way of finding out what would happen next. Anyway, after living with Cormoran and Robin for a weekend and a bit (you know what I mean), I was initially desperate for more books, even though it might take a while with all Rowling’s other projects. Then I moved into basking, thinking over what I just read and wondering what next.
First, the cover, I don’t love that it’s changed so much from the covers of the previous books. I get why they have brought in Robin’s figure, and I like that change. It’s not my imagination that the figures look more like the actors in the show, is it? I get why they turned to white as a background colour. It’s the different fonts that are a change too many, as they’re different from the ones used for the past three books and four are used, all different from each other, one of them to link it with the TV show. The TV show definitely influenced how I visualised the characters as I was reading the book. I dislike changing the style of book covers in a series, and I don’t like the font of the title, specifically.
As to said title, ever since I heard it, I’ve been imagining this would be about drugs, but no.
Rowling managed a gasp out of me at the reveal of who’d put Robin in danger and was the murderer, I’ve got to say, because I thought it was Jimmy – as I had cause to – even though I hadn’t worked it all out to make sense, as per Cormoran’s unified theory. But I found I was reading for watching the characters solve the case, not to try to do it myself. And I think that was wisest, because even I wondered when ‘the case’ was going to start, and the definite, modern-day murder came several chapters into a long book.
Instead, we opened with what happened next after the wedding. This was quite satisfying, with drama and fall-out and romance. I’m not saying that the symbolism of swans was subtle, at all, or that I didn’t raise my eyebrows like a music snob I’m not qualified to be at the playlist of 2001-02. This is true of the whole novel. But hey, most of this book was set during the Olympics/Paralympics, which I wanted – I hope I’ll get the Cornish visit before the series is done.
And yes, my shippy heart was happy with the overall developments. If I’d been live tweeting my non-spoilery reaction to the book – as if such a thing would have been possible, by which I mean being vague enough to be non-spoilery, and as if I could be dragged out of the book to express my reactions - there might have been a lot of ‘you idiots’ going on, as Robin went through with the wedding day after finding out what Matt had done, and then carried on going through with the marriage. I thought Rowling did a decent job of showing how she was forced by circumstance, the protective pressure of most of her loved ones, financial guilt and the return of the Matthew who played on her sympathies to set aside the fact that she was more worried about what another man thought of her on her wedding day, and thinking about running away with him, then spending a part of her honeymoon questioning whether she was in love with this other man (nice holding back on that reveal, Rowling. No lie, Rowling knows how to tell a story, well and good, in terms of timing). It took Matthew made it easy for her by actually cheating again to get her out.
All the wallowing over the hug at the wedding, ought to have delighted me more, but I thought that was overdone, even though it was enough to get Robin to face some home truths. Still, the way the whole wedding day played out, and Robin being honest enough to face the fact that it was the man himself i.e. Strike, and not just the job and what it meant to her, that was pulling at her, offering happiness she wasn’t otherwise feeling, went in ways I didn’t quite dare hope they would. Such as, she got her job back, but she and Cormoran lost touch for nearly a year before Billy brought them a case. I do think that how the reader’s affection for these characters has grown alongside their affection for each other has worked beautifully. As in previous books, they work better when they talk to each other.
I love that this was definitely a book about partnership (well, for Strike, the Chiswell cases were about pairs, weren’t they?) working-wise. There’s still the senior-junior thing, in that he was the one who came up with the theory and has more experience and training, but as he admitted, Robin has always got information he couldn’t have got, which has helped solve. There’s also the fact that he’s, if not further in in terms of unprofessional feelings, been aware of them for longer.
And they did tie themselves up in knots. So, for all the Robin turning up for Cormoran and helping him through Jack’s sickness being so extreme that it led to a hug and that searing accidental kiss, by the time The Green Dress was deployed, we’d had Robin finding Raphael attractive, Cormoran attracting Izzy AND the return of Charlotte. (Poor Lorelei.)
But by that point, I was craving for Robin to have a panic attack in front of Cormoran and stop it with the toughing it out routine (terrible coping mechanism) because she was so desperate for work not to be broken too, because nothing else was going to get through to her. If there was anyone who would be properly, sensibly supportive of poor mental health after trauma…I know she wasn’t reading chapters from his POV and unaware that Cormoran thinks she’s the bees’ knees, buzzing and all, because he can see her fairly clearly. So, yeah, engaged.
Rowling did a good job on the psychology of the therapist following Matthew and following most of what she’d heard after the rape affecting Robin’s perceptions, and the ramifications of what she went through in the last book.
I think I spent the last third of the book going ‘And you’re going to take care of yourselves so you can take care of each other now, YES?’ quite happily. I can live with them being happy about being around each other at this point. Because, as per usual, Strike overdid it with his leg, and much drama was had from the tension of his strength and the weakness of his disability. There was also the drama of Charlotte, promising to return once she’s popped out those poor twins, although hopefully Robin will set aside all her ‘I’m only pretty and she’s beautiful’ nonsense, and realised that she’s kind, strong and not toxic, and if Strike can’t grasp that, he’s not worth it either. The stuff with Charlotte was illuminating as to where Cormoran was coming from, and I suppose he was always going to get a temporary respite from her.
So, the cases. They did take a long time starting, but their leading us to the heart of politics touching on the Olympics/Paralympics worked well. However, this was a lot more about power through class/ Rowling threw in a bit of parody of anger at the entitled upper class, except in the main, she’s still really angry with them. I felt there was a bit of 2018 issues bleeding into a depiction of six years ago at certain points.
The (white) horses did turn out to be significant. I remember thinking they should have talked to Flick sooner – I may even have suspected her of being the housekeeper before it became clear she was (just to prove I didn’t fall for all the red herrings. But, truthfully, I was mainly mystified, with what was going on, and relieved that this wasn’t quite as gross as ‘The Silkworm’.) The occasional breakdowns in communication, mainly caused by Robin’s terrible marriage, misunderstanding, jealousy and other dramas, meant that they weren’t comparing notes, but it wasn’t quite as frustrating as I remember it being in the past. The competent new hires can stay.
I do remember thinking that Cormoran could have shown a little more urgency looking out for Aamir. (So he and Della weren’t sleeping together? And the blind item was rubbish in that regard??) But yeah, I wasn’t theorising much as I was reading. I was aware of the elisions as soon as Strike had come up with his theory, but by then Robin had dumped Matthew, we’d had another road trip (yay! And Cormoran buying champagne to celebrate was A1.) where Robin had been brave, and I was as much exercised with whether Robin was going to go stay with Nick and Isla (I like them and post the ‘one month later’ am assuming they ship Cormoran/Robin even more than ever) as anything.
The scene where Robin talked and talked worked well as a way to reveal how the case had been solved and as she did show again why Strike admires her, because there she was, staying clear-headed under extreme duress, and staying alive. There were more elisions by this point, as per during the bit in Scotland Yard, where the new officer underestimated Robin (snore; Vanessa, her only female friend, doesn’t, Raphael kept realising he had, but the reader and Cormoroan don’t).
By the time all had been revealed about the Chizzles, from what Jasper was being blackmailed for (eurgh!), all that Freddy had done as well as Raphael, they really did seem ghastly, and Izzy’s privileged superiority had been skewered, although she herself was not poison in the way Charlotte seems to be.
Although I suppose ‘Robert Galbraith’ is as much a state of mind for Rowling when writing this, with the hiding of stuff by women in menstruation paraphanelia and Robin facing so much sexism, specifically the way it’s written, that really is stuff that comes from lived experience. I’m aware I’ve written more about Robin’s character development (please let it stick) and my reaction to it than Cormoran’s. One loose thread was that he didn’t tell her about the office/his place being under threat and the need to relocate.
First, the cover, I don’t love that it’s changed so much from the covers of the previous books. I get why they have brought in Robin’s figure, and I like that change. It’s not my imagination that the figures look more like the actors in the show, is it? I get why they turned to white as a background colour. It’s the different fonts that are a change too many, as they’re different from the ones used for the past three books and four are used, all different from each other, one of them to link it with the TV show. The TV show definitely influenced how I visualised the characters as I was reading the book. I dislike changing the style of book covers in a series, and I don’t like the font of the title, specifically.
As to said title, ever since I heard it, I’ve been imagining this would be about drugs, but no.
Rowling managed a gasp out of me at the reveal of who’d put Robin in danger and was the murderer, I’ve got to say, because I thought it was Jimmy – as I had cause to – even though I hadn’t worked it all out to make sense, as per Cormoran’s unified theory. But I found I was reading for watching the characters solve the case, not to try to do it myself. And I think that was wisest, because even I wondered when ‘the case’ was going to start, and the definite, modern-day murder came several chapters into a long book.
Instead, we opened with what happened next after the wedding. This was quite satisfying, with drama and fall-out and romance. I’m not saying that the symbolism of swans was subtle, at all, or that I didn’t raise my eyebrows like a music snob I’m not qualified to be at the playlist of 2001-02. This is true of the whole novel. But hey, most of this book was set during the Olympics/Paralympics, which I wanted – I hope I’ll get the Cornish visit before the series is done.
And yes, my shippy heart was happy with the overall developments. If I’d been live tweeting my non-spoilery reaction to the book – as if such a thing would have been possible, by which I mean being vague enough to be non-spoilery, and as if I could be dragged out of the book to express my reactions - there might have been a lot of ‘you idiots’ going on, as Robin went through with the wedding day after finding out what Matt had done, and then carried on going through with the marriage. I thought Rowling did a decent job of showing how she was forced by circumstance, the protective pressure of most of her loved ones, financial guilt and the return of the Matthew who played on her sympathies to set aside the fact that she was more worried about what another man thought of her on her wedding day, and thinking about running away with him, then spending a part of her honeymoon questioning whether she was in love with this other man (nice holding back on that reveal, Rowling. No lie, Rowling knows how to tell a story, well and good, in terms of timing). It took Matthew made it easy for her by actually cheating again to get her out.
All the wallowing over the hug at the wedding, ought to have delighted me more, but I thought that was overdone, even though it was enough to get Robin to face some home truths. Still, the way the whole wedding day played out, and Robin being honest enough to face the fact that it was the man himself i.e. Strike, and not just the job and what it meant to her, that was pulling at her, offering happiness she wasn’t otherwise feeling, went in ways I didn’t quite dare hope they would. Such as, she got her job back, but she and Cormoran lost touch for nearly a year before Billy brought them a case. I do think that how the reader’s affection for these characters has grown alongside their affection for each other has worked beautifully. As in previous books, they work better when they talk to each other.
I love that this was definitely a book about partnership (well, for Strike, the Chiswell cases were about pairs, weren’t they?) working-wise. There’s still the senior-junior thing, in that he was the one who came up with the theory and has more experience and training, but as he admitted, Robin has always got information he couldn’t have got, which has helped solve. There’s also the fact that he’s, if not further in in terms of unprofessional feelings, been aware of them for longer.
And they did tie themselves up in knots. So, for all the Robin turning up for Cormoran and helping him through Jack’s sickness being so extreme that it led to a hug and that searing accidental kiss, by the time The Green Dress was deployed, we’d had Robin finding Raphael attractive, Cormoran attracting Izzy AND the return of Charlotte. (Poor Lorelei.)
But by that point, I was craving for Robin to have a panic attack in front of Cormoran and stop it with the toughing it out routine (terrible coping mechanism) because she was so desperate for work not to be broken too, because nothing else was going to get through to her. If there was anyone who would be properly, sensibly supportive of poor mental health after trauma…I know she wasn’t reading chapters from his POV and unaware that Cormoran thinks she’s the bees’ knees, buzzing and all, because he can see her fairly clearly. So, yeah, engaged.
Rowling did a good job on the psychology of the therapist following Matthew and following most of what she’d heard after the rape affecting Robin’s perceptions, and the ramifications of what she went through in the last book.
I think I spent the last third of the book going ‘And you’re going to take care of yourselves so you can take care of each other now, YES?’ quite happily. I can live with them being happy about being around each other at this point. Because, as per usual, Strike overdid it with his leg, and much drama was had from the tension of his strength and the weakness of his disability. There was also the drama of Charlotte, promising to return once she’s popped out those poor twins, although hopefully Robin will set aside all her ‘I’m only pretty and she’s beautiful’ nonsense, and realised that she’s kind, strong and not toxic, and if Strike can’t grasp that, he’s not worth it either. The stuff with Charlotte was illuminating as to where Cormoran was coming from, and I suppose he was always going to get a temporary respite from her.
So, the cases. They did take a long time starting, but their leading us to the heart of politics touching on the Olympics/Paralympics worked well. However, this was a lot more about power through class/ Rowling threw in a bit of parody of anger at the entitled upper class, except in the main, she’s still really angry with them. I felt there was a bit of 2018 issues bleeding into a depiction of six years ago at certain points.
The (white) horses did turn out to be significant. I remember thinking they should have talked to Flick sooner – I may even have suspected her of being the housekeeper before it became clear she was (just to prove I didn’t fall for all the red herrings. But, truthfully, I was mainly mystified, with what was going on, and relieved that this wasn’t quite as gross as ‘The Silkworm’.) The occasional breakdowns in communication, mainly caused by Robin’s terrible marriage, misunderstanding, jealousy and other dramas, meant that they weren’t comparing notes, but it wasn’t quite as frustrating as I remember it being in the past. The competent new hires can stay.
I do remember thinking that Cormoran could have shown a little more urgency looking out for Aamir. (So he and Della weren’t sleeping together? And the blind item was rubbish in that regard??) But yeah, I wasn’t theorising much as I was reading. I was aware of the elisions as soon as Strike had come up with his theory, but by then Robin had dumped Matthew, we’d had another road trip (yay! And Cormoran buying champagne to celebrate was A1.) where Robin had been brave, and I was as much exercised with whether Robin was going to go stay with Nick and Isla (I like them and post the ‘one month later’ am assuming they ship Cormoran/Robin even more than ever) as anything.
The scene where Robin talked and talked worked well as a way to reveal how the case had been solved and as she did show again why Strike admires her, because there she was, staying clear-headed under extreme duress, and staying alive. There were more elisions by this point, as per during the bit in Scotland Yard, where the new officer underestimated Robin (snore; Vanessa, her only female friend, doesn’t, Raphael kept realising he had, but the reader and Cormoroan don’t).
By the time all had been revealed about the Chizzles, from what Jasper was being blackmailed for (eurgh!), all that Freddy had done as well as Raphael, they really did seem ghastly, and Izzy’s privileged superiority had been skewered, although she herself was not poison in the way Charlotte seems to be.
Although I suppose ‘Robert Galbraith’ is as much a state of mind for Rowling when writing this, with the hiding of stuff by women in menstruation paraphanelia and Robin facing so much sexism, specifically the way it’s written, that really is stuff that comes from lived experience. I’m aware I’ve written more about Robin’s character development (please let it stick) and my reaction to it than Cormoran’s. One loose thread was that he didn’t tell her about the office/his place being under threat and the need to relocate.
