The Ink Black Heart (Cormoran Strike, #6)
Robert Galbraith
This installment in the highly acclaimed, internationally bestselling Strike series finds Cormoran and Robin ensnared in another winding, wicked case. When frantic, disheveled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation. The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity. Robin decides that the agency can’t help with this—and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart. Robin and her business partner, Cormoran Strike, become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie’s true identity. But with a complex web of online aliases, business interests and family conflicts to navigate, Strike and Robin find themselves embroiled in a case that stretches their powers of deduction to the limits – and which threatens them in new and horrifying ways . . .
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I finished reading this yesterday and have so many thoughts. This series is great for discussion!
1. The Ink Black Heart would've been a masterpiece had it been about 300-400 pages shorter (a whole book!). JKR really needs an editor to tighten up the storyline. The first 1,000 pages had me absolutely glued to the page, but the 300 after that were frustrating to get through. It got to the point where there was so much information that it became overwhelming to keep track of everything and I just wanted her to get to the point.
2. I'm a sucker for a mixed media mystery (The Appeal, The Night Swim), and this was easily the best execution I've seen. Strike and Robin's foray into the digital world brought us a slew of chat and Twitter exchanges that felt incredibly realistic and true to the online stereotypes they represent. The digital world that JKR created was very representative of that period (early 2010s) in social media. These parts were unputdownable.
3. Perhaps it's because I haven't read the Strike series from the beginning, but I appreciate the slow burn between him and Robin. What we get in this series as opposed to HP is real character development. I've enjoyed seeing both Strike and Robin come to acknowledge their feelings for one another, but more importantly, see that there are things within themselves they need to overcome in order to have a successful relationship. To me, this is way more fulfilling than if they'd gotten together earlier in the series -- they never would've lasted. Great evidence of relationships not being just about the right person, but finding them at the right time.
4. I didn't love the ending here. The killer felt a little out of left field, which would've been fine if I could look back and see the clues connecting, but I didn't feel that here. I could also do with a less formulaic structure for the ending. We often get a high-stakes dramatic situation for Robin and Strike. I'd love an ending where no one ends up in a dangerous situation -- just a solid investigation and exploring the aftermath of it. We don't get much exploration of the aftermath in this series.
I don't plan to go back and read the earlier books, as I've seen the TV show, but I'll keep up with the books as they come out. This feels like a series that continues to get better (which is pretty impressive 7 books on).
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