*Spoilers spoilers spoilers* the running grave spoilers thread.. (Content warning - mentions suicide)

[EggTheParrot]

Just as the title says really.. spoilers ok in this thread. Let's keep the other one spoiler free??

Oh my god why is Robyn going undercover!

The clue (I think)is that Strike meets Abigail at the Forester pub, with “its sign showing a stump with an axe sticking out of it”

Still didn’t twig it was her, however, although like PP the echoes of Hannibal Lecter meant the pigs were troubling my subconscious throughout!

Also agree with comments about Mazu above. I think on re-reading and without the misdirection and racing to see whodunnit, there’s probably going to be a lot that JKR is saying there nods wisely

Interesting thoughts re: Mazu. She is a fascinating character.

I was also fascinated by Becca. How she had so much power and believed so thoroughly what she’d been taught. I’m also amazed she seemed to get off scott free when Mazu’s 2 sons were arrested?

il portico!😀

@babystopcryin yes! That was the bit I squealed at. Woke the cat up (late night reading in bed)

Loved the reference to Il Portico, Baby - well done, JKR.

Didn't work out it was Abigail. That totally came out of the blue for me - and I'd completely convinced myself that Becca was Daiyou. But then I rarely work out whodunnit in the Strike series.

It was quite a confusing book, wasn't it? Very enjoyable but I lost track of the various characters quite early on.

I kept confusing Louise and Deirdre. One had a few kids and her husband left her prior to her joining the church. The other one had a few kids and her husband left her after they entered the church.
I'd love to know which cults JK took inspiration from for this one. The celebs treated like royalty, and higher level truths made me think of Scientology and Tom Cruise. I'm curious if others have played the magician tricks to buy credibility with their members.

I think with Mazu and Becca, women who are prepared to sacrifice the safety of other women to buy themselves social capital and prestige from men JKR was definitely thinking of some of the women who advocate for gender woo currently

Re the pigs - there was a missing person case in my town a few years ago and they never found a body - the local gossip was that he had been fed to the pigs.

Apparently pigs will eat anything so I had been thinking all the way through that was what had happened to Daiyu.
Didn't guess the murderer at all though!

Yes, I assumed other people had been fed to the pigs, and that the pig manure had been spread on the vegetable (no idea if pig shit acts as a fertiliser...) and that's why Emily wouldn't eat the carrots. But JK cut out the middle man/pig there.

There was a definite theme of stressed sibling bonds in this book. I'd always felt sorry for Lucy who was clearly traumatised by her background and who I felt Strike wasn't particularly fair on at times, so it was nice to see him becoming more caring of her in this book, and her responding in kind, so grateful that he was finally taking on some caring duties! And that with the messy, jealous background of Will and his brother James' resentment, Alex (?) Graves and his sister Philippa, Daiyu getting murdered and fed to the pigs by Abigail, the Pirbright siblings and accusations of sexual abuse, and Taio and Jang.

I suppose sibling relationships are often very ambivalent things anyway, and if you introduce the influence of a cult which is determined to undermine family links, you still have the petty jealousies and resentments but none of the bonds of loyalty anymore.

I think I was so worried about Robin that I didn't really pay attention as all the characters were introduced or described which is probably why I got a bit lost!

Ohhhhhhh. I've literally just finished it (after accidentally staying awake from midnight to 5am on Thursday having scared the crap out of myself to the point I couldn't go to sleep until I knew Robin got out) and ran here.

This hasn't occurred to me and now I'm mindblowing again.

My favourite Galbraith so far, so much to unpick and I think I need to read it again. I love how it's both so dark and so bleak (and genuinely terrifying/heartbreaking at times) but ended with a cautious hope.

Also, and this may make me a cowbag, I'm glad Charlotte isn't going to be popping up anymore. The cycle of it was getting annoying.

In other news Pat is one of my favourite characters now and I like Robin much more this book (she veered into annoying Hermione a bit much for me in some of the earlier ones).

Finished it this afternoon, I loved it, definitely one of the best in the series so far and I think the ending was perfect.

I take it as it's a spoilers thread then speculation about the next one is allowed?

I was expecting more of a toll on Robin's mental health after going through such a period of trauma and anxiety, and then basically straight back into work but I'm wondering if that's going to be a plotline for #8 and whether it all catches up with her and she becomes too unwell to work for a while which puts a strain on a potential new relationship. I also think if she gets together with Strike there will be significant sceptisism from her parents etc. I also wonder if she's laying the ground for Ryan to be a monumental PITA, although that would seem a bit too Matthew mk2, but then maybe she's going to make the point that there are so many controlling terrible arseholes out there!

JKR is an actual genius but I'm going to be really sad if we're really saying there are only two more books to come.

Found this much more readable than all the online chat of IBR although the written dialogue being spelled out phonetically to underline posho or underprivileged/uneducated status jarred me almost as much. Although wat do oi know, I'm nah intra, inter-wotsit, intralectual or nuffin.

A minor quibble though and I'm now going back to start the reread. What an epic novel.

In other news, you know how JKR did the Comic Relief mini-books of Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages? Do you reckon we could get a little volume of Strike/Pat/Lucy/Ilsa Mumsnet threads?

@FrogSplash agree on Charlotte, it felt like an ending which had been coming for a while.

@UnaOfStormhold agree - I wish I'd made notes on the who's who of Chapman farm - I lost track of the family trees.

I was also pleased when they started delivering her chocolate - it was an obvious necessity!

One plothole I thought given how 'on it' Robin is, was that she left herself so open to pg by giving up the pill but not getting a contraceptive injection before she went in.

Yes I thought that about contraception - an implant would have been a good choice!

I thought Charlotte did have cancer and would die from this tbh , was surprised she actually killed herself. (Saying she had this was awful though, but just typical Charlotte :(
I'm also glad she's no longer about though.
As I mentioned before , I still think these references to contraception might be significant in the next book ! Robin wasn't able to take her pills for 16 weeks and condoms are not fool proof. Unless she bins Ryan off this weekend away and goes back to Strike , but I don't think she will.

Ah yes hadn't considered that @the80sweregreat that would make a good plotline to 'de fairytale' a potential relationship between R&S. I personally think she'll finish with Ryan and tell Strike she loves him too, there were a lot of times in the book where Robin was ruminating and I think she knows she doesn't love Ryan as much as she loves Strike, but without Strike opening the door on a conversation she wasn't going to let herself go there.

I remember reading that JKR has committed to 10 books in the series, with the last finishing before Covid.

Just finished (made myself pace it!) and loved it. I didn't hate IBH but agree this was easier to digest though I still struggled with the sheer number of characters and names!

A couple of things bothering be (in addition to all the errors - where are the proof readers?!)

• how did Emily know to not eat the veg, if only Louise knew about the body moving? It can't have been common knowledge or no one would have eaten them!
• why did Louise, Emily and Becca all hate each other? E and B didn't love Kevin as though he was DV so couldn't blame that on her, and both still very 'in' the church so can't be mad at her for bringing them there?
• at the end it says Louise lost 'two of her sons and both of her daughters'. That suggests she had at least one more son than Kevin and Jacob. Who?
• why wasn't becca arrested?! No one who came forwards made any allegations against her, despite how high up in the church she was? Weird.
• what illness did Jacob have?

I feel like the real murder could have been dripped better to at least give us a chance of figuring it out!

And I do wish she wouldn't be quite so true to regional accents in writing. It makes it very hard to follow!

I didn't read it like that but you are right. I just thought, Kevin and Jacob.

But perhaps the point is that she "could" have had more children...

Yes I agree on the chocolate though I'd have though they should have provided vitamins and some sort of protein as well - I think the fasting and poor diet really increase everyone's vulnerability to the cult's tactics so it would have made a huge difference.

I did wonder about the contraceptive injection but I don't think she realised she wouldn't be able to take medicines with her until the day before, by which time it was presumably too late to arrange it. She's not planning to have sex and of course, being Robin and utterly determined to prove herself unaffected by being raped at university, she is rather downplaying the risk of being forced.

I spent the whole book thinking there would be a big reveal that Rusty the Wounded prophet and his conversation the day he died was all a lie. Still think it sounded like bullshit, but I guess with cults you never really know the truth.

I was having palpitations at Qing being left in the hallway, then watched by Pat’s husband when they go to meet Flora. I was sure she was going to be kidnapped!

Why did they leave her chocolate? I wanted her to have protein bars and some vitamin and mineral tablets. And tearing up the note and scattering it. I was dure a piece would be found.

Just waiting for my heartbeat to calm down before I reread. That book was anxiety raising!

The scene in the church as he speaks to Charlotte was done so well. Had me in tears. Such excellent writing about grief.

And the Jane Eyre moment where she just knew was so romantic. Truely wonderful (And a Charlotte Brontë quote earlier just to underline it was meant).

I think the wanting her to have vitamins and protein bars is a very sensible 'parent' bias we all have, and that Barclay/Midge etc would see the chocolate as a nice moral boost rather than trying to make up for a starvation diet. I also think it's quite clear once she's out that Strike really underestimated how bad it would be for her. I was a bit disappointed we didn't see his reaction to the information that she was almost drowned, it's such an awful thing to have happened, and unexpected.