I admit that I had not heard of Robert Galbraith or his novels in the early days of his career. The first book in the series, The Cuckoo's Calling, was a 2013 murder mystery. A mere three months later, one of J.K Rowling's solicitors outed Galbraith as a pseudonym of the much-lauded children's novelist who brought Harry Potter and his adventures to the world. The jig was up and the book topped the bestsellers' list.
It was amusing at first to see a reference to Emma Watson in The Silkworm given that the actress gained fame as Hermione Granger, another of Rowling's characters. When Lethal White applauded the opening ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympics, I remembered watching "Robert" read a passage from Peter Pan in that program just before Captain Hook and Lord Voldemort appeared to face off against each other. I now read the books about ex-MP private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellicott while thinking of Galbraith as a separate entity.
Here is my ranking of the seven books in the series so far with an eighth announced under the title of The Hallmarked Man.
7. The Ink Black Heart
This novel sees the partners at the detective agency investigating cyber attacks. They are asked to investigate the identity of an online creator of a web series. This poor persecuted creator has been harassed by various figures, including "The Pen of Justice," who savagely calls out the project as being among other things, transphobic. A murder mystery later joins the tangled web and things are not as they seem.
I must confess that I would have enjoyed this book more had I not still followed the author on social media. The plot too closely matched the woes of the person who spoke her truth about gender identity and was torn apart by people who disagreed with her. I find the very real harassment and threats that Rowling faced to be reprehensible, but I no longer follow her social media. Robert Galbraith is a separate voice for me and I prefer it that way.
The plot was interesting in itself, but the formatting was sometimes hard to follow and the resolution of the mystery struggled with pacing.
6. Troubled Blood
The book that came before The Ink Black Heart really appealed to me in terms of its premise. Strike is in the middle of significant personal struggles when he's approached to make a last-ditch effort at solving a missing person's cold case. He not only brings closure for the loved ones but can shed light on other mysteries as well and even take a stand against the mistreatment of the disabled.
This book is not towards the top of the list for lack of quality, but merely because there are stronger storylines in my other choices. A central plot involves the terminal illness of the most consistent mother figure in Cormoran's life This is Strike at his most human and we see him as vulnerable in his grief and resolute for the family he usually avoids. The efforts of friends and family to take care of his unconventional family circle genuinely made me cry, which I did not expect from a book about a missing doctor who used to work in a sleazy club.
This is the installment with a sense of the most intimate reasons for taking a case and it's quietly lovely.
5. The Cuckoo's Calling
The first book in the series is understandably popular. Months after the mysterious suicide of a supermodel, a down-on-his-luck private detective is asked to prove that the death was, in fact, a murder. He can't afford his temporary secretary Robin, but finds her to be so helpful at bringing order to chaos and catching essentials of a case that he begins paying her past her contract. Meanwhile, he's hounded by collectors, given unwanted attention as the illegitimate son of a Mick Jagger rip-off, and plagued by ill health that isn't helped by living in his office.
I enjoyed the characters from the moment Cormoran accidentally copped a feel when keeping his new secretary from plummeting down a staircase. The informants and witnesses were certainly diverse and intriguing, ranging from an unhoused friend of the victim who balked at receiving kindness to the detective's childhood friend who looks like an axe murderer in the making.
This is a great introduction to the series but is listed as Number 5 for being too interested in setting up sequels for my tastes.
4. The Silkworm
This is the book that makes me hate to find it amusing. A somewhat famous writer goes away after delivering a scandalous manuscript to his publisher and the people he relentlessly mocks in his latest book. The distressed wife hires Strike to track down her husband, whose absence is hurting her daughter. When his body is found, murdered, and desecrated exactly as described in the unpublished book, the list of suspects begins to grow.
I am a novelist myself and sometimes found this book to be a murder mystery cloaked in a quirky love letter to the eccentricities of the authorial communities. We have a rival author with an inflated ego who constantly finds subtext. We have the editor who is forever trying to deal with an author who won't do as he's told. An indie author who spends too much time writing blog posts about the toned muscles of her book's love interest has a grudge against her former creative writing teacher. I have known real-life counterparts for all of these figures and related to the murder victim who struggled to produce something as popular as his most famous work.
At the heart of this is the agency's care for the wife and daughter of the author. The wife is self-sabotaging without meaning to be and the adult daughter is what the Tudors would have called an innocent--someone who lacks the mental faculties to be held responsible for her actions. Their story arc and resolution are moving.
3. Lethal White
The book starts with a turning point in the friendship between boss and subordinate as Cormoran and Robin reconcile a major falling out. And then it skips ahead a year and finds them unable to be honest with each other.
A young man in distress comes to Cormoran for help and to confess that he witnessed a murder in his childhood years. Shortly afterward, a member of parliament calls upon the agency about a blackmail that he's on the receiving end of. Robin is called upon to act as an employee in his office and the mystery is just starting to take an interesting turn when the MP is found dead at home.
All of these books have a sudden tragedy as some kind of inciting incident, but this is my third-favorite installment because of the aforementioned deceit within the agency. We know from Robin's chapters that she is struggling in an unhappy marriage and reckoning with PTSD. We see Cormoran's assumptions about her having changed in manner and action over the past year, but it takes a lot of the pot to realize that he has worked out the truth and is giving her space to trust him with the information.
2. Career of Evil
This is the most suspenseful of the books for me. The plot is laid out in an intricate pattern as a serial killer begins sending trophies to the agency offices in London and Strike and Robin begin investigating the whereabouts of three people with grudges against the detective. But the real thriller element is that we have narrative interludes from the person murdering young women and dismembering them, who is unsettlingly also aware of the protagonists' movements.
The book also features the wedding of Robin and Matthew, the accountant who proposed to her just before the opening of The Cuckoo's Calling. "The course of true love never did run smooth," as Shakespeare said, and it's not even clear if they are truly in love at times. This will they/won't they leads to emotionally rich subplots throughout the book.
This is an ideal book for people who want to delve into a dark mind and thrill to the near-misses.
1 The Running Grave
It surprises some people when I say that this is my favorite book by the author of Harry Potter. I read those books many times while waiting for each installment to come out and am emotionally attached to their storylines and characters.
It is true, though, that I finished The Running Grave and found myself utterly moved in ways that hadn't happened with Potter, The Casual Vacancy, or the preceding six Galbraith books. A case brought to the agency requires Robin to infiltrate a cult to help a young member escape. We follow her initiation into the cult as well as her indoctrination and role within the community. We see the ways that abusive behavior and twisted thinking begin to warp this character who has had a remarkable sense of self in every other book. Set against that, we have the concern and friendship of the man who let her take the risky assignment that is absolutely gripping.
The Running Grave sometimes feels like the loneliest storyline of the entire series and the terror associated with that is what makes it worth reading in as few sittings as possible.
All of these books can be found for sale on sites such as Amazon, iBooks, or physical booksellers.