Is this the best Strike book ever?

[heathspeedwell]

I know they have all been good, but I've just finished the latest Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling) book and I really think it's the best one so far. Who agrees? (At this point I think we need to avoid any spoilers but surely we can say how much we have enjoyed every single second of it).

Reading it was hard going imo @Applecrumbleyum It’s the reason I haven’t rushed to buy the latest one. I read the others in hours and I enjoyed them so much, but the ink black heart was just awful.
I may now give the latest one a try after reading the posts on here.

I think it may be, yes. I too found The Ink Black Heart hardgoing (convoluted plot, too many characters, shit reveal) so although I’ve only read 200 pages of her latest, I really appreciate so far the ‘back to basics’ approach she’s took in this book.

I’ve finished it and loved it. JKR is a woman who has spent years dealing with cult-like abuse and irrationality and I would like to think this book’s skewering of a cult and its members was a big FU to the gender borg.

Great book and definitely an easier read than The Ink Black Heart. Which I also loved.

i liked the first three books. The others need a damn good edit and The Ink Black Heart was so astonishingly bad that I can’t believe the publisher didn’t have words with her.

I also HATE the way she insists on writing people’s accents phonetically. It’s not only cringy and distracting but also patronising, snobby bullshit. She writes working class characters really badly in general and I think there’s a bit of internalised misogyny in the way she writes some of her female characters too.

I’m going to try The Running Grave because I like the intricacy of the crime plots and the relationship between Strike and Robin, and there aren’t so many decent non-police detective series out there these days. But unless it’s a lot better and a lot less self-indulgent and patronising than the previous book, it may be the last one I bother with.

Reading the Ink Black Heart at the moment. Can’t wait to finish so I can start the Running Grave. The conversations in the game are hard going but I am persevering as I don’t want to miss something important.
All the Strike books are all brilliantly written. So satisfying to have a detective series which has the secondary story of the main characters so absorbing. They are real life people to me now!
Have also watched them on tv and those are satisfying in a different way.
IBH. will be out at the end of the year.

IBH will probably work a lot better on screen. OTOH I loved Running Grave but I’m struggling to see how some scenes could go to screen.

I think The Running Grave will need more episodes, we will need a few episodes that focus on Robin then everything after (trying not to spoil)

I liked the running grave, particularly the ending but my favourite is deffo career of evil. Sadly Watered down in the TV adaptation.

I loved The cuckoos calling and Troubled Blood
Wasn't keen on Ink and didn't reread it.