The Ink Black Heart

At the beginning of August, I received an email stating that the sixth book in the Strike series would be published at the end of the month (i.e. a few days ago). I wouldn't say that the anticipation was huge and that I couldn't fall asleep at night wondering about the book, but I did reread a few of the earlier books in the series and waited patiently until the end of the month.

I've just spent a few days slogging though the new book which is extremely long, apparently more than 1,000 pages in its printed version. Although the previous book, "Troubled blood", was also long, it was also attention keeping, whereas I had problems giving sufficient attention to TIBH. Woven throughout the book are transcriptions of online chats, and whilst most of these are important to the story, there are too many and too confusing (especially at the beginning). The language - and the abbreviations - used gave me problems. Maybe this is how the youth speak (or more accurately, write) these days. There were several terms/abbreviations that I had to look up on the Internet in order to understand them.

What makes the book long is the multiple storylines: apart from the online chats and the actual story line (who killed the creator of TIBH online cartoon), the book also tells about other cases that the agency is handling, about Strike's love-life (in every book he seems to get a new love - or at least, sex - interest), the never-ending will they/won't they Robin/Strike dynamic, along with bits and pieces from Robin's own life (now that she's divorced, other possibilities arise). Some of this, especially the bits connected with Strike's old flame, Charlotte, could easily have been removed.

It wasn't until the book was about half way over that it began to be interesting. I will, of course, reread the book, hopefully getting more out of it the second time.

Another take on the book can be found here: whilst I agree with most of the review, I don't particularly agree with the paragraph that begins And there is a problem with Cormoran Strike himself. He’s rude, violent and doesn’t understand women.  He certainly isn't ruder than any of the younger participants, I don't remember him being violent (or at least, not unnecessarily so) and I think that he is more misunderstood by women than he misunderstands them. [I should point out that this was the first review that I came upon, so it may not be representative of other reviews. I'm not trying to make a point on the basis of this review.]

One slightly strange (to me) aspect of the book is that it is set in 2015 and so continues the time-line from the earlier books. Was YouTube such a big thing in 2015? Were the abbreviations current? The setting seems more modern that this, although I appreciate that one can't have a five year gap in the story lines of two consecutive books without something to explain what happened in those five years. Actually, as opposed to the other books, there are very few references to the detective agency's previous cases, as opposed to events in the protagonists' private lives. But Robin turns 30 (and Strike 40) in the book, whereas a previous book told about her 29th birthday