5th of 7

'Robert Galbraith' is a skillful storyteller, demonstrating an excellent understanding of human character, and sprinkled with natural meaningful sayings and observations.
This is a tomb of a book, over 900 pages, with a multitude of characters.
I kept a track of them with useful https://strikefans.com/ web site.
I also appreciated that meeting places were real and traceable via google street view.
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I have enjoyed all of the books in this series and this one has become my favorite. Strike and Robin investigate a 40-year-old cold case; the disappearance of a young, married, doctor, and mother of a young daughter. The victim's daughter hires Strike and Robin to find out what happened to her mother and gives them a timeframe of one year. J.K. Rowling tells the story with so much detail that I quickly felt immersed in the story and characters' lives. ( )

This book took me almost 2 weeks to read, even reading every chance I got (way more than my usual half hour before bed). This is not because the action was slow-paced or the language was dense or anything else. It was because this book is over 900 fucking pages long. I have given this novel 4 stars because it was engaging from start to finish and I believe it was actually the best Cormoran Strike novel yet, BUT it is too fucking long. There is a lot going on here: there is a complicated, 40-year-old cold case, in which a doctor vanished without a trace, in the midst of a high-profile and extremely grisly serial killing spree. There is high personal drama for both Strike and Robin (family, death, divorce, attempted suicide, etc.), and between Strike and Robin (just the usual sexual/romantic tension that has been building up over 5 books now). There is death, and deception, and heartache. But, this was not enough for Rowling -- sorry, Galbraith -- who cannot seem to show restraint in either her public social proclamations or her writing. She needs to give us all kinds of side stories about the half-dozen or so other cases that are underway at Strike's detective agency, none of which are the least bit relevant to the main story, which as I said, is a complicated cold case, involving a diverse and far-flung cast of supporting characters as well as a bunch of weird parapsychology that requires numerous illustrations and explanations, OR the personal side stories, which are what pack all the emotional punch throughout. This book could have been 200 pages shorter if she had chopped all that extra stuff that was meaningless. So, it could have been a 5-star read, especially because it was almost devoid of the menace that has characterized a number of the previous volumes in the series (which is good -- I don't like menace), but I take one star for extraneous bullshit. ( )

The character personalities were a bit bland but I pushed through. The hype and anger over people screeching about the killer being trans: He's just a psycho that likes to cross dress. A dude with mental issues that moonlights as a murderer. Think buffalo bob. The focus wasn't on him wearing a dress but his crimes. It's just hype.

The plot itself while dragging at many points still was interesting enough to keep me reading. The devices and twists were worth the time, tho at almost 1000 pages it really felt like a LOT of filler. Easily could have out about 1/3 of the book and still not miss it. Read worthy for the plot devices. ( )