Louise Freeman — Strike Series Ranking

 Originally Published:March 3, 2023 by Louise Freeman 4 Comments

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I decided to do my Strike book rankings in a Dance Moms-style pyramid, because, for me, there is one clear favorite, two great second tiers, and then the rest. I choose the books by which ones I actually enjoyed reading, and re-reading, most.

The favorite: 1. Lethal White. Its position as the midway story turn of our presumed seven series, Potter-parallel series gives this volume a place of its own.  After the high body count and gruesome killings and woman-directed violence of Career of Evil, Lethal White was a like a breath of fresh air. I also have a personal fondness for this book, having predicted years in advance that the London Olympics would form the background, and having speculated on the pre-book predictions podcast that Robin would get to don her Green Dress again for a Yule Ball type event. My chance googling of the name Rattenbury was one of the luckiest “strikes” I ever made in the world of literary sleuthing. And, this book, with its dozens of connections to Goblet of Fire, this book was proof positive of the parallels with Harry Potter.

Other high points: the addition of Barclay to the team, Robin’s undercover action as both Venetia Hall and Bobbi Cunliffe, Strike being there for his critically ill nephew Jack and Robin being there for him, the recurrent white horse motif, the connection to Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, Robin’s A Doll’s House-like dumping of the Flobberworm, and Strike first comforting her on the verge, then buying her a mini-champagne to toast her newfound freedom. Overall, this book was a ideal balance of mystery, action, romance and humor. (“Maybe you should put that on your next employee satisfaction review. ‘Not as f*cking annoying as the woman who shagged my husband.’ I’ll have it framed.”) I think it’s the audiobook  I’ve re-listened to more than any other.

I debated considerably over the next two slots, but I finally decided on 2. The Ink Black Heart and 3. Troubled Blood. These two volumes have a lot in common, starting with their length. It is clear Robert Galbraith was given full freedom to tell the tale he wanted to tell, with minimal editorial interference. The sheer complexity of the cases and the numbers of potential suspects set these two volumes off from the rest of the series. I also like the complexity of the ring composition, with both books having multiple connections to both The Silkworm and Career of Evil, enough to trigger the 5-6 flip hypothesis.

In many ways, I like the content of Troubled Blood better. The cold case was intriguing, it was great to delve more into Strike’s Cornish life and share the heartbreak of Joan’s death and the loss of Ilsa’s baby. Pat was a great addition to the team. Seeing Strike mentally out-duel Creed in the psychiatric hospital was the best good versus evil showdown since Harry and Voldemort circled each other in the Great Hall. And, the whiskey-fueled, best friends talk is right up there with the talk on the verge in terms of Strike-Robin moments to savor. This moment, followed by Barclay’s hilariously ill-timed interruption and Robin’s final disposal of the loathsome Saul Morris to create a trio of satisfying scenes. I also love the trip to Skegness, the bonding over fish and chips and the way Strike follows it up with the balloon donkey.

But, there is plenty to love about The Ink Black Heart as well. I think this book takes the prize for the most Easter eggs to be found upon re-reading. Unlike a lot of readers, I liked the chat room format; I thought the audio-book reveal of the Anomie-Paperwhite connection was particularly well done. The fact that the killer was Anomie and that he was confident enough in his anonymous persona to confess to the murder online multiple times makes his eventual unmasking all the more satisfying. I love that both Robin and Pat got moments to shine in emergency situations, that both Strike and Robin have officially acknowledged their feelings for each other, and that Strike gave Charlotte what may finally be the final heave-ho, after realizing she is not capable of genuine love or compassion, not even for her own children. Contrast that to Robin’s approach to vulnerable characters like Zoe, Flavia and Rachel, and you can see why Strike finally opened his eyes. I don’t think its coincidence that the long-awaited pelican Christ-symbol/ sacrificial mother love representation finally appeared in this book, as a favorite Highgate headstone of foster child Edie Ledwell.  “Morehouse” is certainly one of the more tragic figures of the series. Strike’s sleepover at Robin’s and their subsequent trip to the seaside were all great reads. But what I think I like most is Strike’s own self-improvement efforts: in addition to shrugging off Charlotte, he is giving up smoking, losing weight and trying to care for his leg properly. I share John’s hope that Strike will continue this path in the next book with an upgrade to a better prosthesis.

Why did IBH edge out TB?  Find out after the jump.

Science in Cormoran Strike: Narrative Misdirection or Plain Old Error? Part I: DNA and Paternity Testing

 Originally published: January 7, 2019 by Louise Freeman 2 Comments

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There have been numerous speculations by more than one writer on this blog that Jonny Rokeby really isn’t Cormoran Strike’s father. (See here, here, and here for some of the key posts.) I want to look a little closer at what Cormoran has been told of his past, and evaluate the ways that he, and we readers with him, may have been deceived on this matter.

Cormoran believes:

1. that he is aging rocker Jonny Rokeby’s son;
2. that this has been common, if not public knowledge since he was 5 years old;
3. that it took a DNA test to make Jonny acknowledge paternity;
4. this revelation caused the break-up of Jonny’s marriage and a hefty alimony pay-out.

In The Cuckoo’s Calling, he tells his client he is “the extramarital accident that cost Jonny a wife and several million pounds in alimony.” In The Silkworm, we hear this narration as an internal monologue:

 The occasional fascination of total strangers, which at five years old he had thought had something to do with his own uniqueness, he eventually realized was because they saw him as no more than a famous singer’s zygote, the incidental evidence of a celebrity’s unfaithful fumble. Strike had only met his biological father twice.

It had taken a DNA test to make Jonny Rokeby accept paternity.

The trouble is, this story cannot be entirely true. For why, join me after the jump.

J.K. Rowling and the Phantoms in the Brain

 Originally published: March 11, 2016 by Louise Freeman 7 Comments

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As best I can recall, brains only came up once in the Harry Potter series. There was a “Brain Room” in the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix, that contained a tank with green liquid and a number of “pearly white” brains floating in it. When a mentally-addled Ron foolishly Accio-ed one out, it flew through the air, attacked him with tentacles that “looked like ribbons of moving images” and left scars on Ron’s arms that even Madame Pomfrey was hard-pressed to remove. But the message is clear: in the wizarding world the study of the brain, and, by extension, the mind, is relegated to the Unspeakables, and considered an area of scholarship too dangerous to be shared with the general public, putting it in the same realm as other mysterious forces of the universe such as love, space, death and time. Thoughts, according to Madam Pomfrey, “leave deeper scarring that almost anything else.”

In the Cormoran Strike series, Rowling moves the study of the human mind into the scientific realm, by making its female protagonist, Robin Ellacott, an ex-psychology student, intent on a career in forensic psychology before a sexual assault interrupted her university studies. As a professor of psychology and neuroscience, I have already documented through Harry Potter that Rowling seems familiar with the diagnostic criteria of multiple Muggle psychiatric conditions.  She also seems to have provided a realistic account of Robin’s mental breakdown after her assault and the way she overcame it.

As we know, Rowling does not write anything without doing a “ridiculous amount” of research, so it is hardly likely that she would write an entire series of novels about an amputee without educating herself about the medical facts regarding such an injury. After reading the first three books of the series, I am now convinced she consulted one of my favorite neuroscience writers, Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, author of Phantoms in the Brain (1998), A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness (2004) and The Tell-Tale Brain (2011). Ramachandran’s books present fascinating case studies about people with seemingly bizarre neurological conditions. So far, three of the conditions he describes have turned up in the Comoran Strike series.

Career of Evil and Strike Speculation 100: Untangling the Timeline of Donald Laing

Originally published: April 10, 2021 by Louise Freeman 6 Comments

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The errors associated with Donald Laing’s history have already been mentioned on this site (see John’s ‘The Trouble with JKR/Galbraith Dates’). So, how are readers to make sense of it all, especially when we are looking to Cormoran Strike’s own past as the key to the “big mystery” of the series: who killed Leda? Since Laing’s army career intersected with Strike’s twice, figuring out his history informs us on Strike’s.

For convenience, I list below 25 passages from Career of Evil that make some sort of actual or implied claim on the timeline of Laing’s life. Remember that Career is set in April-July 2011. Strike is 36, going on 37 in November. 

1.  “I got him life…Out in ten. He’s been on the loose since 2007.”
2. “I’m pretty sure he was at an address in Corby in 2008, but he’s moved on.”
3. “He had not seen Brockbank for eight years, Laing for nine.“
4. “He was before I knew you. King’s Own Royal Borderers. Knew him in Cyprus.”
5. “He’s the Scot I landed in jail for ten years.“
6. “…who had been only twenty when they had first met.“
7. “…whom he had first met eleven years previously in a boxing ring.“
8. “the younger man perhaps faster on his feet, Strike superior in technique.”
9. His senior officer had accepted Laing’s plea of mitigating circumstances…he had entered the ring deeply distressed by news of his fiancée’s miscarriage.
10. “Three years later, Strike had arrived in Cyprus to investigate an alleged rape.”
11. “Donald Laing had been sentenced to sixteen years’ imprisonment for what he had done to his wife.”
12. “He came back to see his mother a few years back.”
13. “Och, four or five years ago, that would’ve been.”
14. “He turned up on her doorstep, forced his way into the bungalow.”
15. “When Rhona first took up with him—she was fifteen and he was seventeen—“
16. “He wanted tae join the army. Good riddance, I thought. I hoped she’d forget him if he left. Then he came back. He got her pregnant but she lost it… she went and married him on his next leave…Off to Cyprus together.
17. “Six months she lived in fear of him turning up and then one day he did.”
18. “She and Laing had a baby, didn’t they? The kid must be, what, ten by now?”
19. “Have you got any idea where Laing went after turning up at Rhona’s?” “Yes.  Apparently he went to Gateshead, but I don’t know whether he’s still there.”
20. “He spent a decade inside and I doubt they managed to rehabilitate him. He’s been out over four years: plenty of time to commit murder.”
21. “It’s only twelve miles from Corby. We could swing by and see whether the Laing who was shacked up with a woman there in 2008 is our Laing.”
22. “How long were you together?” “Ten months.“
23. “Unsolved murder in Leeds, 2009. Prostitute, originally from Cardiff. Then, last year, a girl was killed and mutilated in Milton Keynes. Sadie Roach, her name was.
24. “He thought about Laing, living alone in his grim Wollaston Close flat, claiming his disability benefit, overweight and infirm, looking far older than his real age of thirty-four.”
25. “Police have charged thirty-four-year-old Donald Laing with the murders of Kelsey Platt, Heather Smart, Martina Rossi and Sadie Roach.”

It is already obvious that not all 25 time references can be accurate.

• Laing could not be sentenced to both 16 years (11) and life (1).
• If Laing is 34 at the time of Career (24, 25), and 20 (6) at the time of the boxing match, the match did not happen 11 years ago (7), but 14.
• If Laing was released in 2007 after serving 10 years (1, 5, 20), he would have been jailed in 1997. This presents multiple problems:
  • It puts Strike 3-4 years off in his estimate of the age of the baby he rescued (18).
  • For the boxing match to occur three years before the arrest (10), it would have happened in 1994, when Strike was 19 (for most of the calendar year, anyway), and therefore not older than 20-year-old Laing (6, 8).
  • This would also have Strike first meeting Laing in the ring a full 17 years ago, not 11 (7). In 1994, Strike would likely not even be in the Army yet, much less promoted to Corporal and boxing in a tournament. 

So, unless Donnie is a time-traveler as well as a sociopath, or the Red Caps boxing team illegally imported some Oxford students, some of the above must be in error. The question is, is there a way to make sense of most of it, given what else we know about Strike’s history?  See my efforts on that front after the jump.

Pentagram Predictions I: Cuckoo-Career of Evil Links

 Originally PublishedJuly 6, 2022 by Louise Freeman 1 Comment

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Under the Pentagram model, the stars that Talbot scrawled frantically on his notes are a clue not just for Strike and Robin but for the readers, providing a map to the structure of the series. This model predicts that particular pairs of books will have parallel themes. One such pair is The Cuckoo’s Calling and Career of Evil. I am going to list some of the connections I see and ask our readers to list more in the comments.

“Nae Problem:” How Career of Evil Should Have Ended 15 Chapters Earlier.

 Originally Published:January 29, 2021 by Louise Freeman 9 Comments

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Robin Ellacott has certainly made some questionable decisions: sneaking off to warn Alyssa about Brockbank, letting sentiment over the Royal Wedding dupe her into resuming her engagement to the Flobberworm, trying to grab Strike’s arm when he’s throwing a punch, not dumping the Flobberworm at the wedding reception, drunk-texting Saul Morris on Boxing Day, not dumping the Flobberworm on the honeymoon, visiting Mucky Ricci without telling Strike and not dumping the Flobberworm when he ripped her gorgeous and expensive green dress. But, I would argue, her most foolish lapse of judgement came in a scene I’ve never seen discussed: Chapter 47 of Career of Evil.

The somewhat disgruntled Robin has been observing young Stephanie, believing, quite rightly, that Strike has intentionally put her on their least likely suspect to keep her out of harm’s way. Once Stephanie takes off in a van with Whittaker’s henchmen, she heads over to Wollaston Close to monitor Donald Laing’s apartment. Although neither she nor Strike ever seemed to realize it, she makes one of the most boneheaded moves of her career on this stakeout. Startled by Laing’s curtains being open, and trying to fake a phone call while searching for a better spying position, she slips on some spilled curry and falls. Guess who arrives to assist?

Somewhere in her vicinity a man burst out laughing. Cross and humiliated, she tried to get up without spreading the muck further over her clothes and shoes and did not look immediately for the source of the jeering noise.

“Sorry, hen,” said a soft Scottish voice right behind her. She looked around sharply and several volts of electricity seemed to pass through her…

“Ye’ll need a tap,” he said, grinning broadly as he pointed at her foot and the hem of her dress, “and a scrubbing brush.”

“Yes,” said Robin shakily. She bent to pick up her mobile. The screen was cracked.

“I live up there,” he said, nodding towards the flat she had been watching on and off for a month. “Ye can come up if y’want. Clean yerself up.”

“Oh no—that’s all right. Thanks very much, though,” said Robin breathlessly.

“Nae problem,” said Donald Laing.

Oh yeah, it is a problem. More  on why this is indicative of a sudden drop in Detective Ellacott’s IQ after the jump.