Cormoran Strike (2)

I'm slowly rereading the first book in the series, "The cuckoo's calling", and I also watched the first part of the dramatisation. My remark that "nothing has been added" is not strictly true, but it's interesting to see which parts of the book have been discarded completely (much of the back story) and which parts have been combined. For example, in the book there are two policemen who investigated, but they have been combined into one. Another example is a 'business lunch' that takes place between four people; two of them have been removed from the equivalent scene, but as one of these is the downstairs neighbour, Tansy Bestigui, her questioning has to be moved elsewhere.

I've now read all five books in the series, and I have to say that the fifth, "Troubled blood", is quite a tour de force. It's also much longer than the other books, but this is difficult to quantify as a digital book doesn't have page numbers. Theoretically the file's size should provide a good correlation, but TB has several 'pictures' (supposedly handwritten extracts from a journal) that increase the file's size disproportionately. There are four main threads to this book: the reason for the book itself (a cold case from 40 years ago regarding someone's disappearance), the period leading up to and after the death of Strike's aunt, other cases that the enlarged office is handling and the mix of feelings between Strike and Robin. This latter thread constitutes another trope, 'shipping'. 

With respect to the cold case, I am surprised that people have such strong memories of events that occurred 40 years ago. Whilst I remember where I was 40 years ago today (in the army), I don't remember the events of any specific date. Maybe having their statements to the police read back jogged their memory, and presumably the original statements were made close to the event. One thing that I don't like about Rowling's writing style is that several characters 'speak' in dialect that is rendered faithfully in the text; this makes it difficult to understand what these characters are saying. The normal convention is to write a sentence or two in dialect then continue in normal English; the necessary mental gymnastics required to decode this text makes it even harder to fit the data into one's understanding of the plot. I hesitate to call the data 'facts' because there are several liars involved in the story.

Strike's previous successes have led to his office expanding, with a few investigators and an office manager. This enables several cases to run at the same time and leads to various complications. Whilst these extra cases don't add to the main thread (in fact, they detract because of scheduling issues), they add verisimilitude.

To my pleasure, I discovered that our television supplier has started showing the second third season of the tv series: the fourth book "Lethal white" over four parts. The first episode was recorded automatically on Thursday evening: I thought that I would have to wait until Monday morning for a time slot of its broadcast that doesn't clash with other recordings. Doubling the time devoted to this book (the first season had one book with three episodes; the second series covered two books, each with two episodes) should enable a better translation of the story to the screen. I found this book slightly confusing: it starts with one story, moves to another that in itself turns into something else, and all the time the initial story is continuing to develop underneath the second story (shades of Rebus). The addition of the first external investigator adds complication without resolution.