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shallownessTroubled Blood: Robert Galbraith
It’s another monster of a book (seven parts!) spanning over a year, and it feels right that I spent several weeks reading it. Strike and Robin are facing their toughest case yet, after he is asked to take on a cold case that’s nearly forty years old. Although the agency is busy and they tell their client it’s unlikely they’ll find the truth, the partners take it on together. The case is the disappearance of a GP, Dr Margot Bamborough, the mother of their client, then a baby. Margot Bamborough left work one rainy autumn evening and never reached the pub where she was meant to be meeting a friend. The case was botched by the detective in charge, who was on the verge of a mental breakdown and obsessed with the theory that Bamborough was the latest victim of a serial killer dubbed the Essex Butcher. The same theory was in the mind of the more together detective who took over the case months later, but by then the trail had cooled.
Honestly, I never tried too hard to puzzle out who was behind what was most likely a murder, only thought, ‘Shouldn’t you be speaking to the witnesses closest to her first?’ and later noting that the author was making it very difficult for the modern-day detectives to get a hold of some witnesses until, ooh, part 6. Convenient, that. Of course, some witnesses (and suspects) had died or suffered from dementia or other aliments of old age, which meant they couldn’t clarify or expand on their original statements. Some had left the country or changed names, naturally making the investigation more difficult, but a few remained in the vicinity of Clerkenwell, where the disappearance took plakce.
I was much better at working out stuff that wasn’t to do with the Bamborough case e.g. what the man they’d dubbed Shifty’s Boss was being blackmailed about (I won’t claim detective brilliance, it just happened I’d seen something similar on a TV show recently), and why Cormoran’s birth father’s family were so eager for him to go to a party they were holding for Jonny Rokeby.
But as ever, it’s the personal stuff, especially the ship, that fascinated me more than the mystery, some aspects of which are pretty grim. (No grimmer than previous books, I suppose.) The book starts in summer 2013 and ends in autumn 2014, and the big event in the UK that year was the Scottish independence referendum. Even if you didn’t know what the author’s stance was on that, you just might be able to guess from the way the topic is discussed.
For we do get to go to Cornwall, the one stable part of Cormoran and sister Lucy’s childhoods, as I’d long wanted, but under tragic circumstances. Their aunt Joan has been diagnosed with cancer. Cormoran is often required back to Cornwall, meaning that Robin has to hold the fort in London. They have more sub-contractors now, but a heavier workload, and it could be argued that both Robin and Strike are going above and beyond for what is, yes, a calling for both of them, Additionally, the Bamborough case comes to mean more and more to Robin in particular.
They both tend towards workaholism because they both have things to avoid. Robin’s separated husband Matthew is still being awful now over the terms of their divorce, and her loving family’s attitude and expectations of her aren’t helping. Strike too is struggling with family expectations at a time of strain, his toxic ex Charlotte is still contacting him, and he spends a particularly miserable Christmas.
Strike and Robin’s relationship is also under some strain. A comment from one of Margot’s colleagues, whom Strike interviews early about their GP practice not being a happy team rings some bells. Strike and the new secretary don’t get on, Robin finds their newest sub-contractor a bit smarmy, he’s too flirty, while not respecting her position in the agency. But because both Robin and Strike, especially him, respond badly to Ilsa’s obvious matchmaking, there’s a distance between them. Neither wants to endanger their working partnership, so neither wants to examine their feelings too closely. But the reader can see the cost of that line of thinking.
The family stuff, Strike’s torn loyalty between his dead mother and his childless aunt and uncle, the pressure to reconcile with the birth father who never wanted him, help explain Strike’s position here. But at the same time, just talking to Robin makes him feel better. Meanwhile, what looks like taking her for granted rightly irks Robin, who is perhaps able to be more herself with him than, say, her family.
The feminist lens is strong in this one, with a serial killer who targeted women, some of whom were prostitutes, being a big part of the case, while Margot was a vociferous second-wave feminist. Of course, this year, Rowling’s comments on gender and transgender issues will probably invite more comment about one male character who wore women’s clothes for his own reasons and the impact it had on the case.
I sometimes wished Rowling’s editor had pointed out that she’s too fond of certain repetitions that are stylistically clunky: there’s an early conversation where Robin sighs a lot, and I don’t know how many times ‘she said quietly’ or Strike’s sweary exclamation of irritation crop up, but qualitatively, it’s too much. Other turns of phrase or words are available!
The recurrence of symbols, from the Cross of St John to the astrological/tarot symbols that were part of Detective Talbot’s mental ill-health are weaved into the plot well, though, and the plotting is great. Sure, there’s the moment where Strike picks up on a coincidence and you just know that it’s going to be the key to solving the case and then there’s a lot of with-holding until the final denouement, but when the denouement comes, oh it fits, and ties in organically to an observation Robin made long ago about assumptions. There’s something interesting about the author’s awareness of her own cleverness as Strike matches wits with killers who think they’ve been clever for many years.
In the meantime, Robin and Strike’s relationship shifts over the course of the case. Loss and his loneliness in facing it have affected him, and he has listened to Robin. After a strained autumn, winter, even spring, better communication leads to some of their problems being dealt with (a theme in previous books), and other people’s habit of referring to Robin as ‘your Robin’ doesn’t seem so fraught.
I’m calling a future book covering the 2016 referendum (though, yikes!) I don’t know if Rowling will have the stomach to write them in 2020, though. Every Tube journey, every stakeout, every visit to a pub, café or shop made this book seem far more of a period novel than the others. 2014 feels like as distant a world as the seventies were to the detectives.
[Lightly edited for clarification, punctuation and extraneous words 2/8/23. And again 5/8/23.]
It’s another monster of a book (seven parts!) spanning over a year, and it feels right that I spent several weeks reading it. Strike and Robin are facing their toughest case yet, after he is asked to take on a cold case that’s nearly forty years old. Although the agency is busy and they tell their client it’s unlikely they’ll find the truth, the partners take it on together. The case is the disappearance of a GP, Dr Margot Bamborough, the mother of their client, then a baby. Margot Bamborough left work one rainy autumn evening and never reached the pub where she was meant to be meeting a friend. The case was botched by the detective in charge, who was on the verge of a mental breakdown and obsessed with the theory that Bamborough was the latest victim of a serial killer dubbed the Essex Butcher. The same theory was in the mind of the more together detective who took over the case months later, but by then the trail had cooled.
Honestly, I never tried too hard to puzzle out who was behind what was most likely a murder, only thought, ‘Shouldn’t you be speaking to the witnesses closest to her first?’ and later noting that the author was making it very difficult for the modern-day detectives to get a hold of some witnesses until, ooh, part 6. Convenient, that. Of course, some witnesses (and suspects) had died or suffered from dementia or other aliments of old age, which meant they couldn’t clarify or expand on their original statements. Some had left the country or changed names, naturally making the investigation more difficult, but a few remained in the vicinity of Clerkenwell, where the disappearance took plakce.
I was much better at working out stuff that wasn’t to do with the Bamborough case e.g. what the man they’d dubbed Shifty’s Boss was being blackmailed about (I won’t claim detective brilliance, it just happened I’d seen something similar on a TV show recently), and why Cormoran’s birth father’s family were so eager for him to go to a party they were holding for Jonny Rokeby.
But as ever, it’s the personal stuff, especially the ship, that fascinated me more than the mystery, some aspects of which are pretty grim. (No grimmer than previous books, I suppose.) The book starts in summer 2013 and ends in autumn 2014, and the big event in the UK that year was the Scottish independence referendum. Even if you didn’t know what the author’s stance was on that, you just might be able to guess from the way the topic is discussed.
For we do get to go to Cornwall, the one stable part of Cormoran and sister Lucy’s childhoods, as I’d long wanted, but under tragic circumstances. Their aunt Joan has been diagnosed with cancer. Cormoran is often required back to Cornwall, meaning that Robin has to hold the fort in London. They have more sub-contractors now, but a heavier workload, and it could be argued that both Robin and Strike are going above and beyond for what is, yes, a calling for both of them, Additionally, the Bamborough case comes to mean more and more to Robin in particular.
They both tend towards workaholism because they both have things to avoid. Robin’s separated husband Matthew is still being awful now over the terms of their divorce, and her loving family’s attitude and expectations of her aren’t helping. Strike too is struggling with family expectations at a time of strain, his toxic ex Charlotte is still contacting him, and he spends a particularly miserable Christmas.
Strike and Robin’s relationship is also under some strain. A comment from one of Margot’s colleagues, whom Strike interviews early about their GP practice not being a happy team rings some bells. Strike and the new secretary don’t get on, Robin finds their newest sub-contractor a bit smarmy, he’s too flirty, while not respecting her position in the agency. But because both Robin and Strike, especially him, respond badly to Ilsa’s obvious matchmaking, there’s a distance between them. Neither wants to endanger their working partnership, so neither wants to examine their feelings too closely. But the reader can see the cost of that line of thinking.
The family stuff, Strike’s torn loyalty between his dead mother and his childless aunt and uncle, the pressure to reconcile with the birth father who never wanted him, help explain Strike’s position here. But at the same time, just talking to Robin makes him feel better. Meanwhile, what looks like taking her for granted rightly irks Robin, who is perhaps able to be more herself with him than, say, her family.
The feminist lens is strong in this one, with a serial killer who targeted women, some of whom were prostitutes, being a big part of the case, while Margot was a vociferous second-wave feminist. Of course, this year, Rowling’s comments on gender and transgender issues will probably invite more comment about one male character who wore women’s clothes for his own reasons and the impact it had on the case.
I sometimes wished Rowling’s editor had pointed out that she’s too fond of certain repetitions that are stylistically clunky: there’s an early conversation where Robin sighs a lot, and I don’t know how many times ‘she said quietly’ or Strike’s sweary exclamation of irritation crop up, but qualitatively, it’s too much. Other turns of phrase or words are available!
The recurrence of symbols, from the Cross of St John to the astrological/tarot symbols that were part of Detective Talbot’s mental ill-health are weaved into the plot well, though, and the plotting is great. Sure, there’s the moment where Strike picks up on a coincidence and you just know that it’s going to be the key to solving the case and then there’s a lot of with-holding until the final denouement, but when the denouement comes, oh it fits, and ties in organically to an observation Robin made long ago about assumptions. There’s something interesting about the author’s awareness of her own cleverness as Strike matches wits with killers who think they’ve been clever for many years.
In the meantime, Robin and Strike’s relationship shifts over the course of the case. Loss and his loneliness in facing it have affected him, and he has listened to Robin. After a strained autumn, winter, even spring, better communication leads to some of their problems being dealt with (a theme in previous books), and other people’s habit of referring to Robin as ‘your Robin’ doesn’t seem so fraught.
I’m calling a future book covering the 2016 referendum (though, yikes!) I don’t know if Rowling will have the stomach to write them in 2020, though. Every Tube journey, every stakeout, every visit to a pub, café or shop made this book seem far more of a period novel than the others. 2014 feels like as distant a world as the seventies were to the detectives.
[Lightly edited for clarification, punctuation and extraneous words 2/8/23. And again 5/8/23.]
no subject
Date: 2020-10-29 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-30 10:35 am (UTC)I don't know how I'd have felt about the length, and perhaps the pacing, had circumstances been different, but since the first lockdown,I've been reading more regularly, if more slowly.