SPOILER ALERT Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott)

[Civilservant]

Spoiler thread for posters who have read or listened to The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling) and would like to discuss it!

Murphy been in a car accident, drink driving?

Totally! I know that all the characters in the story are totally imaginary and bear no resemblance to any living person, but if Branfoot was based on Boris Johnson, which of course he can't be because he's totally imaginary, he would be the most blatant caricature the author has ever written.

Another question- the car accident. Was it just an accident, or did Griff tamper with it hoping to kill Tyler, not realising that he wasn’t driving.

Yes someone please clear this up as I couldn't work out how it was relevant!

Yes I think that’s right. Griff didn’t know that Tyler had stayed at home because he was ill - he was supposed to be at the gig and he was the intended victim.

Yes, the blurry “woman” caught on CCTV in the parking lot was actually tiny Griff.

I kinda hope that Murphy breaks up with Robin after deciding that having children/getting sober is a priority for him. Nice and clean. But this won’t happen as JKR loves angst too much.

I think that she just tells him her real name is Yolanda but possibly even she didn't know the rest but was probably starting to question it/ seek answers - as that explains why she's under the floor.

I'm going to listen to The Running Grave again (about the fourth time!) and then repeat this one.

I think that some of the reason it was harder to focus on the case was that this one moved on in 'real time' a lot quicker.

Normally about a year has elapsed and we enter case then learn what has gone on in that time.

With the cliff hanger of the last one, I was very distracted by it.

The Running Grave was utterly brilliant but they can't all be at that pace so I think it was always going to be a tricky follow up. I think it is much more realistic that Robin isn't okay. She went through a huge amount both mentally and physically in the UHC and in the aftermath and seems to have buried herself in trying to achieve normality/safety. She's repeating her response to her last major trauma where she clung to the safe boyfriend and felt a loyalty because he had been kind afterwards.

On repeat listens I enjoyed the Ink Black Heart on a different level, following all the clues set out.

I suspect I overlooked so much of what was clever in this one and I'll appreciate it more second time around.

I don't normally re-read/listen to books but I think Robert Glennister's excellent narration makes them feel like some sort of comfort blanket me.

I've just finished a relisten and it's so much better second time round. I found the first listen very frustrating, I couldn't keep track of what hell was going on or who was who, but I enjoyed it significantly more. Reminds me of why I like spoilers 😉

Woah sorry what now??? When was this?

I think the reporter was Darius Guppy. You can Google it. It should come up straight away.

It was this case

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/14/black-eyes-boris-johnson-plot-attack-reporter-darius-guppy

I think it is much more realistic that Robin isn't okay. She went through a huge amount both mentally and physically in the UHC and in the aftermath and seems to have buried herself in trying to achieve normality/safety. She's repeating her response to her last major trauma where she clung to the safe boyfriend and felt a loyalty because he had been kind afterwards.
@FiveBarGate that is spot on.
I really hope she gets to heal properly in the next book.

Thanks very much. That is really grotty. Although in all fairness to Johnson he did not, as @MissBattleaxe said he did, issue the order to beat someone up for his own reasons, and he wasn’t a powerful politician at the time. Rather he was a journalist who appears to have agreed to get another journalist’s home address so that someone could beat this second journalist up for this Guppy person. That, it should go without saying, is still revolting, although the fact that the plan was aborted may suggest Johnson did not, in fact, follow through on his promise. (Wouldn’t be the first of last time he didn’t deliver, would it?) But it’s a different order of revolting from him being behind the intenddd beating for political reasons. I thought the detail about it likely being connected with a fake jewellery heist was interesting, though! It does look like this was JK’s inspiration for that branch of the plot!

I am hoping the plain speaking, sweary therapist will help a lot. I am also hoping we get to eavesdrop on some therapy sessions in Book 9 and follow Robin’s thoughts as various pennies drop for her wrt relationships with her mum, family, Ryan and Strike.

My predictions for the next/final two books is that Robin will sort herself out and by the end of Book 9 will make her own declaration to Strike. Who will have got himself entangled in another relationship and/or Bijous baby will turn out to be his after all, because I don’t think he’s actually seen the results of the DNA test. Plus he did the swab and left it with Bijou to post, so she could have done a swap with someone else.

Book 10 will cover getting all the pieces in the right place for Strike and Robin to finally get together, but there will be Great Peril to at least one of them with lives in danger. There will be an epilogue, like at the end of Deathly Hallows, showing their lives some period later.

I can’t see JKR doing anything other than happy ending for Strike and Robin. She has enough online abuse as it is without turning all the Strike fans against her!

Oh and I do not expect that Strike and Robin will get together until the end of Book 10 because the will they/won’t they is so key to the characters and how they act.

if anyone remembers the tv show Moonlighting about a detective agency run by Bruce Willis and his blonde side-kick played by Cybil Shepherd, that went very flat when their characters got together after a couple of series. All the sexual tension just went.

Oh yes. A post covid epilogue would be good.

I'm happy to stand corrected. I still think it corresponds with fictional Branfoot being a public populist buffoon and yet being ruthless in private.

It's even mentioned that Branfoot deliberately messes up his hair before going on television.

Oh yes, I definitely agree that Branfoot is based on Johnson, and given the fake jewellery heist detail in the Guppy/Collier story I think it’s perfectly possible Rowling was thinking of that case specifically in her fake masons’ silver shop heist plot line. To be clear, I dislike Johnson and I was horrified both when he was chosen as Tory leader and also when he was elected as PM. Truly depressing moments. He handled Covid dreadfully too. All the same, I thought it was a startlingly vicious fictionalisation. I’ve never got the impression that Johnson is unpleasant or misogynistic in his sexual life, still less coercive or criminal. A messy, self involved, feckless philanderer, obviously. But fictionalising him as a singularly vicious mason taking out hits on porn stars and filming people without their knowledge is punchy.

I got to the end of the podcast, and they reckoned there was an old interview with Jo where she said that the relationship arc with Strike + Robin went through books 7/8/9 - which makes me hopeful that they will have some up and downs through 9 but they will be nicely settled and together by the final book. I do hope so... I would so love to read about them being together and doing normal things.

Hah, I can imagine it being something Jo specifically checked out - and carefully noted down too 😄

Agree with a pp that perhaps that level of detail isn’t as annoying as Pat being “monkey like” or “simian” in EVERY scene she’s in.

Saying that, I appreciate that Strike’s tea was “the colour of creosote” a mere once in this book, so maybe she’s got to get these details out of her system and in subsequent books Pat’s features won’t be so remarkable.

Someone mentioned on another thread that there is an “easter egg” in the book that’s a reference to mumsnet and you’ll know it when you read it… but I’ve read the whole book and am yet to work it out! Can anyone enlighten me please?

I think there is but now I can’t remember what it was. I noticed at the time. Dammit.

Tunnocks tea cakes. A favourite of FWR.