Title: The Ink Black Heart
Author: Robert Galbraith
Series: Cormoran Strike #6
Publisher: Sphere
Synopsis:
When frantic, dishevelled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation. The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity.
Robin decides that the agency can’t help with this – and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart.
Robin and her business partner Cormoran Strike become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie’s true identity. But with a complex web of online aliases, business interests and family conflicts to navigate, Strike and Robin find themselves embroiled in a case that stretches their powers of deduction to the limits – and which threatens them in new and horrifying ways…
My review:
What a treat to return to the brilliant characters of Robin, Strike and their Detective agency, and immerse myself once again in the brilliant, readable plots of the Cormoran Strike series. If you’ve read any of these novels before, you’ll know what I mean and I’m sure I don’t need to give background to the characters – if you’re thinking about reading this one – book no. 6 in the series, coming in at almost 1,000 pages – you’re bound to be in some way familiar with this series! I don’t think you’d need to have read the others but to get the most out of this book it’s definitely preferable.
The plot is superbly twisty and engaging. It kept my attention completely for every page of this mammoth book – no mean feat! I always enjoy the ongoing ‘will they, won’t they’ relationship between Strike and Robin, and the main case/investigation this time was a very dark one – at times it was quite disturbing – but it was incredibly intriguing.
As always, I love that these novels are largely set around London. For me, every book (after the first) in this series has been like returning to old friends, and it’s a joy to read. It’s definitely one of my favourite books of 2022.