Finished The Cuckoos Calling, confused by ending

[MorrisZapp]

Obviously, massive spoilers ahead. First Cormoran Strike novel, The Cuckoos Calling, murder mystery, I'm about to say who dunnit.

The ending was utterly baffling. In fact from the moment he shagged the supermodel any attempt at plausibility left the building.

Can anyone explain the will thing? Why did a woman with millions in the bank make a home made will and trick a shop assistant into signing it?

And why did horrible John instruct a private investigator to investigate a crime he'd apparently got away with?

I have a million other questions but I'll save them in case nobody bites.

Dripping roses, wtf. Strike managed to interpret drips of water on the stairs that he never saw as having come from flowers which were then put back into a display that he never saw.

I didn't get it the first time either.

John knew Lula had left her money to her long-lost half-brother in her will, because she had told him, but he didn't know where the will was.

Because of this, he was living in fear of the will suddenly being discovered and him losing the money he had inherited.

To this end, he engaged Strike to hopefully find the half-brother that had appeared running away on the CCTV, the police having lost interest and declared her death a suicide. His hope was that the half-brother would be convicted of the murder and as you can't benefit in a will from a murder, he himself would be able to keep the money.

However he was also on the CCTV running away etc.

I think it's the weakest of the Strike books. As soon as the guy engages Strike and his brother falling into the quarry is mentioned, I thought "it was him" and I was disappointed to be right.

Why did a woman with millions in the bank make a home made will and trick a shop assistant into signing it?

I think she just wanted to do it quickly, had she not died she would have probably got it drawn up properly. She was trying to phone her uncle, maybe she would have asked him to deal with it but he didn't pick up.

A solicitor could do it in days. A handwritten will with a tricked witness is worthless, she was surely smart enough to know this.

I didn't guess the quarry push but I suppose in hindsight it's pretty obvious!

I took random offence that a lady who had lost two children in traumatic circumstances and was now heavily medicated because of the pain of dying of cancer was deemed a tad introspective and selfish when she failed to be entertaining from her death bed. I felt like punching him in that scene.

Anyway I've got the next one lined up to hate read, keeps me going in lockdown :)

I think the series gets better as it goes on. Her style works well with the more complicated mysteries in the later ones, and the characters are better developed.

I have literally just finished re-reading Career of Evil because I wanted to read it again knowing whodunnit and I am trying to resist starting to re-read the next one because of where Career of Evil left off