Hello all, have just finished the book and immediately came looking for this thread. Am utterly bereft now, I haven't enjoyed a reading experience so much in ages.
Some thoughts:
For such a long book, it didn't feel bloated or overwritten to me. Would happily have read on. I would have liked a longer coda at the end.
The lack of relationship progression between Strike and Robin was frustrating, but in the best, prolonging-the-agony way. Am presuming they won't get together until the last book. Are we sure there are only ten, by the way? I thought JKR had said 'at least ten' initially, but maybe I'm wrong.
I guessed Anomie was either Gus or Katya fairly early on; there was an in-game message where Anomie says something like "Have to drive someone to the hospital, God forbid they take public transport", which mirrored an earlier IRL conversation between Katya and Gus. Was glad it was Gus in the end - it wouldn't have made sense, after a long and perfectly executed depiction of online misogyny, for Anomie to then turn out to be a woman.
On that, JKR absolutely nailed Incel Twitter. I wonder how many of those Tweets were taken word for word from ones that she has received...
Had the same thoughts as many of you about the possibility of Anomie being multiple people, and the use of scheduled Tweets.
The only real bum note in the whole book for me: I was reeeeallly uncomfortable with how Strike (and, to a lesser extent, Robin) handled the discovery that Jago was beating his children, and how long it took them to do anything about it. I couldn't really believe that nobody made an immediate call to child services the first time they had credible evidence that this grown man was punching his young daughters in the face. Was actually hoping that one of the children would be killed or seriously injured and Strike and Robin would have a moment of horrified revelation that they had let their concerns for the agency override their duty to protect these kids. I know Robin did raise it once or twice with Strike, but it was pretty feeble, and his priority was absolutely protecting himself and his business, which she seemed to agree was the most important thing. Really disappointing.
Am sure I have more thoughts, but this post is long enough already!