The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith
First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Sphere. Copyright J.K. Rowling 2022.
The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) is the sixth outing for the fantabulous Cormoran Strike and his detective agency partner Robin Ellacott
First up I need to say that I have a massive crush on Cormoran Strike, honed from five previous Strike novels, and not unhelped at all by the broodingly sexy Tom Burke portrayal of the character in the 2017-2022 BBC TV series Strike. So bias alert - I love Strike, and as I’ve had to wait two entire years since the last Strike thriller (Troubled Blood in 2020), to get my Strike fix, it was going to be difficult for Galbraith to present me with a book I didn’t like.
Strike is an ex–Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch investigator and the illegitimate son of famous rock star Jonny Rokeby. Strike lost the lower half of his right leg in an attack in Afghanistan and turned private detective on leaving his previous job. His leg is heavily featured in all the books and really is a character in itself - adding much to his woes and causing him trouble at crucial moments, mainly due to his careless attitude towards it and his pint-loving, cigarette-inhaling, takeaway-imbibing lifestyle. And if you’re wondering who Robert Galbraith is - it’s none other than the Harry Potter creator JK Rowling. She adopted the pseudonym before the first Strike novel to avoid the pressure and expectation that would come from being the author of the globally-successful Harry Potter books.
Luckily, much like the anticipated date with a lover who’s been away for far too long, this latest instalment more than surpassed its brief of page-turning pleasure. There’s a juicy crime to solve, the simmering sexual tension between Strike and his detective partner Robin notches up a few more degrees, and contemporary themes of online trolling are very well explored.
At the beginning Robin takes a meeting at the detective agency with Edie Ledwell, the successful co-creator of a very popular, but divisive, online cartoon The Ink Black Heart. Ledwell appears frightened and claims she is being pursued by a mysterious online troll known only by the pseudonym Anomie. Robin is caught by Ledwell’s plight, but turns down the job since Strike’s agency doesn’t deal with cyber crime, and their recent success means they’re fully booked.
She’s later horrified to discover that Edie has been brutally murdered, and her cartoon co-creator Josh seriously injured in an anonymous attack in Highgate Cemetery, London - the setting for the Ink Black Heart.
Photo by David Vincent on Unsplash
The pace winds up and before you know it you’re hobbling with Strike through the streets of London in ferocious pursuit of the answers
We are soon drawn into the shady world of The Halvening - a far right terror organisation, who appear to be tied up in the case. And Robin subjects herself to trolling and worse by adopting the online pseudonym of Buffypaws to investigate crucial incel Twitter accounts and an Ink Black Heart fan game called Drek’s Game - co-created by Anomie and the also mysterious Morehouse.
Robin’s investigations leads the agency further into danger and they are soon the victims of The Halvening’s terrorism and Anomie’s now targeted pursuit of Buffypaws.
In this latest outing for Cormoran and Robin, it’s Cormoran’s personal life that hampers their investigation (earlier books focussed on the breakdown of Robin’s marriage to Matthew). And Cormoran’s entanglement with the wrong type of women, ultimately puts both Robin and Strike in absolute peril when they finally confront Anomie to unmask them.
Some detective novels make the crime the story, and others the characters. Galbraith balances the two neatly so the reader is hellbent on discovering who Anomie is before Strike and Robin, but is equally vested in the personal lives of the main characters and the will they/won’t they nature of Strike and Robin’s ever-deepening relationship.
This book is an absolute page-turner, and despite its whopping 1272 pages, I could not put it down - I confess I was so gripped that I even bought it on Kindle and Audible so that I could max my ‘reading’ by listening when I wasn’t able to sit.
Previous Robert Galbraith fans will be thrilled by this latest Strike mystery and for those who are new to the series? It really is better to start with the first outing for Strike and Robin (The Cuckoo’s Calling, published 2013) and work your way forward. It’ll take a while to get through the previous five though - so tell your friends and family you’re busy for the next six months.
