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!

Robin and Matthew rent the sea merchant's house in Lethal White rather than buy.

I think the lack of her old friends isn't unrealistic. She's been in London for about eight years. As her cousin Katie says 'it's like your life is running in a different direction'. Visits home become less regular, she's avoiding Matthew and Sarah and a lot of her friends have kids. You keep in touch but a certain distance grows.

This book has a lot of parallels with Lethal White which I think is the best mystery as it's so cleverly constructed if you analyse them purely for that element of plot. In LW Robin is having panic attacks. They are based on the attack by the strangler but they stop after she leaves Matthew even though she's sleeping on a sofa and sad. It was the forcing herself to live a lie that seemed to be the tipping point and she's repeating that here, again in the aftermath of a trauma which is how the feelings manifest but there's something more underpinning them.

Good spot, @Woompund !

I know the area of London where Robin has a flat (she definitely bought it) and pre around 2014 she might just about have been able to do that by herself depending on her deposit size. Prices rocketed post-Olympics but it’s not the smartest bit of Walthamstow. I also find most blocks in London don’t have great sound insulation so that sounded quite plausible and will also affect her mental state as that kind of thing can make you jittery as well. I agree, I really felt for her in this book.

I've just finished this. I found it annoying in places, in particular the day Robin was at Ryan's with his parents! I really wanted her to tell him fuck off!
She had so many opportunities to dump him 😭.
But I'm glad it ended the way it did. At least it's out in the open!
I found the story confusing as I was listening to the audio book but it came together in the end.

I was wondering if Strike would find something in Ted and Joan's house to expand on the Rokesby/Leda backstory - maybe letters from Rokesby wanting to be a part of Strikes life, or some communications between him and T&J discussing Ledas lifestyle and him sending money to T&J to help out, etc.

In real life yes 100%. But in fiction enjoyed it. A bit like Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where we get to see Manson’s gang shot to bits before they can harm poor Sharon Tate.

Absolutely agree. I turn 80 in December and hope I can hang on for the last two.

I am 93 in January and I too hope to hang on for the final two

So many chances! What I can’t understand is why these men — Matthew, Ryan — are so desperate to marry Robin. They don’t trust her, she doesn’t want what they want, they can tell she’s holding back from big life moves with them. I can kind of see it with Ryan because he’s obviously all over the place himself, but Matthew was even having an affair! He had someone to move on with! Why was he clinging so hard to a relationship that was plainly dead in the water?

That was explained quite well, I thought. Under normal circumstances they would have done the standard "grow apart at uni" thing. But Robin was raped, quit her degree, went home, and Matthew thought he'd be an arsehole to leave her then. He was supportive - he isn't a monster, despite what he did. Robin had so much trauma from the rape and the court case and there was just never a time when either of them felt they could end it. Then they hit that life and relationship stage where people feel they have to marry or split up, and marrying is so much easier, especially when the other person hasn't done anything wrong per se (as he hadn't, at that point). I know a few people like that. They divorced and obviously should never have married at all, but they kind of had to marry in order to make the growth they needed to realise they should split up, iyswim.

I think in Ryan's case, he's never quite got her which makes him want her more. He's possessive and wants to pin her down/ own her.

I think what both Matthew and Ryan want from her is the quality of attention and involvement that she naturally and easily brings to Strike and her work. She has to make an effort to shift her attention to Matthew and Ryan but is so utterly engaged with the detective work and her relationship with Strike that they feel excluded and want to control her.

And Robin wanted to split up on the honeymoon but then Matthew was ill, wasn’t he?

He doesn't really listen to her. She asks for space, he sends estates agent details on houses. She says she's unsure about kids - he's pressuring her to freeze her eggs. He has a picket fence/2.4 kids fantasy planned out in his head - yet is drinking .....

Yeah, Ryan’s life is a shipwreck and he’s wilfully mistaken a fellow castaway for a life raft. I expect he feels as though he’s holding things together so long as he has an eligible partner. If she leaves him, what’s left for him?
I’m less certain about Matthew. Yes, I agree that JKR very skilfully showed how the relationship persisted past a couple of points at which it should have foundered because the rape meant that first Matthew and then Robin was very unlikely to end it. I think the illness on honeymoon was also a good psychology explanation for Robin staying with Matthew at that point. But Matthew’s reasons for staying with her? I guess he thought she was what he wanted before she started working with Strike, and then hoped that tearing her away from Strike would keep her what he wanted. But later, when he was shagging Sarah again and guilting Robin about Strike all the time? He had a parachute relationship in place, he obviously didn’t like being with Robin anymore. Why did he hold on to her? Appearances maybe? I mean, actually in a horrible way it makes sense.

I think Robin constantly needs to justify her actions to herself. Strike was absolutely right, she feels like she owes people and stays with them out of gratitude and not wanting to be seen as selfish/wrong.

Every choice she makes is presented to her as selfishness. The job, baby etc rather than realistic reasonable choices.

both Matthew and Ryan want to be chosen, that’s why they stay. Both convinced that Robin just needs to stop being selfish and all will be well. Both have mothers who put their families (and them) first and assume Robin will eventually do the same.

Ryan & Matthew are both good looking men who are looking for the good looking woman who (they think) befits men of their "status". Robin is beautiful, clever & statuesque and both men feel they deserve her. But they don't know her, they don't listen to her, they resent her work, and both feel inadequate in the shadow of Strike.

Robin uses both men as shields - shields from her trauma, her self, her love for Strike which she feared might blow up the one things she is really honest with herself about loving - her work/business.

The fertitlity story is interesting - we are all conditioned to wanting children as a default, but many women increasingly don't want children, or lack any drive for children. Lacking an internal drive for children doesnt necessarily mean a woman doesn't want them - she might just have other things on her mind, as is the case for Robin. Its only Robin making these decisions now - the chaps are all OK. Women are forced into these decisions - while our "equality" and place in the working world advances, women are rarely if ever able to be liberated from their biological bodies. The clash between career and family is still very real - neither Matthew or Ryan face these dilemmas.

I call THM the "baby book" - babies everywhere:

Decima
Bijou
Isla
Vanessa
All the Cunliff babies
Sarahs babies
The new puppy Betty
Plugs puppies

Contrast with Wardle who has his toddler overnight while the mother is out.

Not thought this all through yet but in TRG we saw baby farming & traffiking & the complete dismissal of "mothering". In THM the babies are essentially wanted & loved by their parents (there are some complicated situations too) & all are mothered.

Silver is a traditional gift for new babies.

TBH I don't think Mathew ever intended to marry Sarah. I think he was traditional and had convinced himself that Robin was a suitable wife and mother. He felt that he had shown himself to be a "good bloke" for staying with her and it fed into his ego that he was "superior" and she was "dependent. He expected Robin to be happy in a "good" corporate job - like the HR one and they would settle into the life of the upwardly mobile, middle class, professional couple - discussing schools, houses and cars in wine bars with his accountant friends. But Robin taking a minimum wage job at a private detective agency, (and driving the Landrover) threw him a curveball and was a blow to his ego .... but he had Sarah on hand for excitement so he needed to put Robin back in her "dependent" box of homemaker.

But then Sarah set out to trap him by leaving the earring and yet another ego blow - Robin didn't care. Then Sarah expedited the divorce through pregnancy and Mathew has his middle class life - but it hasn't resulted in the life he thought he wanted.

Matthew was a right see you next Tuesday, but I feel Ryan is getting an unfair rap here. He's a decent, kind guy who is also tall and hot (big box tickers in Strike world).

Robin doesn't feel passionately about him but lacks the courage to be alone, or even honest. She lusts after Strike but can't picture a future with him because he's a massive shagging, using bastard. With a horrible flat, one leg, a rock star father and a dead ex who was better looking than Debbie Harry.

Robin is afraid to even acknowledge her own feelings, and if she doesn't grow a spine at some point she can hardly claim any kind of adult agency.

Is she planning to police Strike's alcohol, junk food and vape intake should she become Mrs S? Is she fuck. She wouldn't dare take on a strong character.

Robin is the only woman who doesn't police Strikes food, alcohol & vaping - Strike loves this and thinks on it in every book. She trusts him in many ways, but not romantically as he's a bit of a mess on that front. Then again, so is she. Just different kinds of messes.

She's always taking on strong characters at work & we know she is brave. But she loses herself in relationships - they become shields she actually doesn't need or even want.

I think it will be interesting when Robin finally starts therapy. I don’t think she ‘grew’ at all in this book, rather she slowly crumbled and fell apart, and perhaps this excellent and directive therapist will be the one to help her move forward.
And then obviously my dearest wish is that she realises that Strike is her soulmate and we get lots and lots of lovely romance lol.

Is she planning to police Strike's alcohol, junk food and vape intake should she become Mrs S? Is she fuck. She wouldn't dare take on a strong character.

She came across Strike drunk very early in the series. He was harmless and a bit pathetic. She has supported his diets already. Robin isn't even slightly scared of Strike, she doesn't hesitate to take him on when she thinks he's screwing things up for the agency.

Murphy is known to be an alcoholic and to be nasty when drunk.

I think the point of Murphy was Robin was not ready to make herself vulnerable in a relationship. She likes him but not that way. She can stay slightly detached. He's a second boyfriend, the one she should have had in her late teens/early 20s when she'd moved on from Matthew.

She has challenged Strike on his drinking and inconsiderate behaviour (eg when he showed up steaming at her flatmate’s dinner) and she’s supported his efforts, prompted also in part by her forthright comments about his physical condition at the end of Ink Black Heart, to stop smoking and lose weight. I think the point is that you can’t force change on a romantic partner (or anyone else) in any meaningful way, no matter how much you challenge them. People have to be responsible for themselves and their choices, and they need to be happy with themselves and honest with themselves to make good partners. Neither Robin nor Strike starts the series in good condition to start a healthy relationship with a satisfying partner. That’s one reason they keep making awful relationship/sexual choices. We’ve seen Strike starting to make healthier choices in every respect, being more honest with himself, and preparing to make himself genuinely vulnerable with Robin. Meanwhile, Robin has accepted that she needs proper professional help, built up her professional (if not so much her personal) self esteem, and established a relationship with a man (Strike) in which she routinely asks for what she needs and gets it (at least at a professional level). I think a lot of the next book will track her progress towards accepting the way she feels about Strike and feeling ready to risk herself for that.

Agree. And also, as a fellow literature graduate, I know JKR will be very familiar with the literary concept of the attic symbolising the cerebral e.g. in Mansfield Park where Fanny has her room in the attic etc.

So, Strike allowing Robin into his attic shows that she's the only woman whose mind he has respected and loved. All his other women have just been pretty airheads really. Yes, he obviously fancies Robin, but equally it's a meeting of similar spirits and minds.

Swoon!