- ARRSE Rating
For those who don’t know, Robert Galbraith is an alter ego of J K Rowling, famous for writing the Harry Potter books, which my offspring in particular enjoyed between the age of six and twenty. He and his fiancée named their dog ‘Lupin’ after a character in the series, and I enjoyed reading them to and with him.
I picked up on the Cormoran Strike detective books from a recommendation by @Auld-Yin and ‘read’ the first six books in the series on ‘Audible’. I found them engaging, enthralling, and interesting, although Mr. GRB was a little disturbed by what he described as ‘all the effing and jeffing’. Personally, I felt it reflected the particular characters being portrayed; twenty-two years in the Army made him a sensitive flower, it seems!
The series concentrates on Cormoran Strike, a former Military Policeman with a complex backstory, who now earns his living as a Private Detective, having lost part of a leg in Afghanistan. Robin Ellacott, his female partner in business, is another character with a complex history. There’s been a constant ‘Will they? Won’t they?’ theme throughout the series, which doesn’t intrude on the interesting plots, sub-plots, and plot twists which have featured so far.
The setting of this book is a religious cult, something the author has obviously discussed with her husband as there’s a touching mention of him in this context in the credits at the end. A lot of research is reflected in the detail of how people are drawn into cults, how benign cults are portrayed to be and what life is really like within. The case starts with a cult member's family approaching the agency concerned about him being lost to them, and opens out into several wider, sub-plots, with a fascinating denouement. There is a link to Cormoran's mother, always portrayed in the press as a 'Super-Groupie', but it seems in fact a rather sad, naive person whose life did not last long.
Like all the books in the series it deals with some of the unpleasant things people do to one another and to those who set out to expose wrongdoing. It weaves a clever tale of victims, survivors, families, and those trying to protect the vulnerable, but includes simpler matters like managing staff, unexpected kindness from those least expected to be kind, and the different results to be got from people depending on how you approach them.
As always, the characters are plausible, complex and interesting, their histories, families and motivations providing interesting insights into how they approach solving the crimes. Unlike many other detective stories, family stories run alongside the main story, so in realistic fashion Strike is juggling solving a multifaceted crime at many locations, whilst struggling to deal with an elderly, much loved relative who is in need of care, building a relationship with a newly-met half-sister and her children, and dealing with a suicide, as well as the ‘Will they? Won’t they?’ with Robin.
Overall a cracking read, with good plots, a couple of interesting twists, and some excellent characters, both central and peripheral.
One of the things I like about Galbraith’s books (apart from mentioning arrse in the first one!) is that each chapter has a relevant verse, or thought-provoking quotation at the beginning. One had sections of ‘Blue Oyster Cult’ songs; this one has verses from the I Ching or Book of Changes, which I found interesting. If the point of that is to make one think, it certainly works! I did wonder where the title of the book came from – surprisingly to me, a poem by Dylan Thomas.
Mr. GRB won’t hear this one, as it’s a real book, but there is much less ‘effing and jeffing’ as it’s not appropriate for most of the characters.
Five Mushroom Heads – a cracking, thought-provoking read, and I do hope that no-one had to join a cult to do the research!
Amazon product
I picked up on the Cormoran Strike detective books from a recommendation by @Auld-Yin and ‘read’ the first six books in the series on ‘Audible’. I found them engaging, enthralling, and interesting, although Mr. GRB was a little disturbed by what he described as ‘all the effing and jeffing’. Personally, I felt it reflected the particular characters being portrayed; twenty-two years in the Army made him a sensitive flower, it seems!
The series concentrates on Cormoran Strike, a former Military Policeman with a complex backstory, who now earns his living as a Private Detective, having lost part of a leg in Afghanistan. Robin Ellacott, his female partner in business, is another character with a complex history. There’s been a constant ‘Will they? Won’t they?’ theme throughout the series, which doesn’t intrude on the interesting plots, sub-plots, and plot twists which have featured so far.
The setting of this book is a religious cult, something the author has obviously discussed with her husband as there’s a touching mention of him in this context in the credits at the end. A lot of research is reflected in the detail of how people are drawn into cults, how benign cults are portrayed to be and what life is really like within. The case starts with a cult member's family approaching the agency concerned about him being lost to them, and opens out into several wider, sub-plots, with a fascinating denouement. There is a link to Cormoran's mother, always portrayed in the press as a 'Super-Groupie', but it seems in fact a rather sad, naive person whose life did not last long.
Like all the books in the series it deals with some of the unpleasant things people do to one another and to those who set out to expose wrongdoing. It weaves a clever tale of victims, survivors, families, and those trying to protect the vulnerable, but includes simpler matters like managing staff, unexpected kindness from those least expected to be kind, and the different results to be got from people depending on how you approach them.
As always, the characters are plausible, complex and interesting, their histories, families and motivations providing interesting insights into how they approach solving the crimes. Unlike many other detective stories, family stories run alongside the main story, so in realistic fashion Strike is juggling solving a multifaceted crime at many locations, whilst struggling to deal with an elderly, much loved relative who is in need of care, building a relationship with a newly-met half-sister and her children, and dealing with a suicide, as well as the ‘Will they? Won’t they?’ with Robin.
Overall a cracking read, with good plots, a couple of interesting twists, and some excellent characters, both central and peripheral.
One of the things I like about Galbraith’s books (apart from mentioning arrse in the first one!) is that each chapter has a relevant verse, or thought-provoking quotation at the beginning. One had sections of ‘Blue Oyster Cult’ songs; this one has verses from the I Ching or Book of Changes, which I found interesting. If the point of that is to make one think, it certainly works! I did wonder where the title of the book came from – surprisingly to me, a poem by Dylan Thomas.
Mr. GRB won’t hear this one, as it’s a real book, but there is much less ‘effing and jeffing’ as it’s not appropriate for most of the characters.
Five Mushroom Heads – a cracking, thought-provoking read, and I do hope that no-one had to join a cult to do the research!
Amazon product
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