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!

I feel like it’ll be one year… she’s on a roll, this one wasn’t quite as long as some and didn’t she do IBH a year after TB?

Agree! This seems very likely. Murphy may well get fired in that case too.

However, if the next book picks up immediately after this one, it'll start with Strike in the office I reckon, not the Robin/Strike conversation or the Robin/Murphy Ritz date.

Maybe the PHONE CALL will be something critical/urgent and Strike will have to interrupt the Ritz date...

Dates between books ….

First 3 released at yearly intervals
Lethal White, 3 years later
Troubled Blood, 2 years later
IBH, 2 years later
Running Grave. 1 year
THM, 2 years.

As she’d already plotted out the rest of the series it could easily be a year apart for the next two.

Also the time is running away if we’re still on in 2017.

I’m rewatching the TV adaptations from the beginning - Cuckoo, Silkworm - and really feel that Matthew was miscast. The actor who plays him, Kerr Logan, is so glowering and downcast and frankly a bit threatening in every shot, it’s inconceivable that she’d have felt safe and happy with him. Perhaps he’s just channelling the troubled part of their relationship - but there must have been a time when they were happy? He never, ever looks pleased to be with her.

I feel the same (obviously hope that is not wishful thinking on my part) because as you say she does seem to be on a roll and IBH coming a year after TB is a good omen.

I was also hopeful that it would be a year, but the tweet that she's just finished part 1 makes me very doubtful. I will obviously be delighted if I'm wrong!!

Sorry what tweet. How many parts did THM
have ?

I want it NOW!

I'm hoping the gender madness is on its way out and JKR doesn't need to spend as much time dealing with twazzocks on social media and can crack on with the next instalment.

I’m hoping that Robin will summon her backbone and go to the ritz in an absolute fury that RFM has spread the news of his proposal plans so much that strike knew about it before she (technically) did! And break up with him properly!!

I just saw a screenshot on an instagram story so can’t post, but it was a response from JKR to someone asking how the book 9 was going and she said she’d just finished part 1.

THM had 10 parts plus an epilogue, which is why the hopes I had for book 9 next year were dashed.

I wonder if she’s even going to make it to the Ritz. I can see her standing them up and him getting really angry because they had his card details etc. Maybe she takes some time to calm down and then heads back to the office, possibly Pat catches up with her.

But what was the phone call? Is it something that takes Strike away from the office, so by the time she gets back he’s not there?

But one of the other long/later books in the series had four parts IIRC? I don't think being on part 1 tells you very much.

She also says she's fully plotted and planned out books 9 and 10 - so it's the actual writing which is left to do. The plotting and planning I would think takes much longer.

I tend to agree about part 1 not meaning much as her books certainly vary in the number of parts. TRG had 9 parts and that followed IBH in only a year. Recently on Instagram I saw JKR saying book 9 was well underway. Ever hopeful.

We shouldn’t feel too hard done by if it’s a couple of years I suppose. I’ve been waiting 14 years for GRRM to sort his life out.

Lol! The wait for Winds of Winter is where I learnt to manage expectations!

Men are so slow.

I’d be shocked if he ever published it tbh - think that ship has sailed long ago 😂. I’m thinking either 18 months or 2 years - so March or September 2027.

I honestly think GRRM has written himself into a black hole and just doesn't know how to progress the books.

I think he admitted it, or it's been somehow confirmed that's the case? Thing is, like Stephen King, he doesn't plan. He improvises the whole way. That's why even King fans admit he can't do endings (and he's taken the piss out of himself for it too).

JKR, of course, plans and plots like a mistress storyteller. Whenever you read a JKR book, you know your guide knows where she's taking you.

The thing with JKR is that she is an absolute master of the plot twist - the trail is always there on a reread, everything makes sense, but she doesn’t hint or lead the reader towards it at all. I don’t even try to guess where she’s taking you because she’s that good at it it feels pointless. I can’t think of any other writer who genuinely surprises the reader like that. I still remember the first time I read both prisoner of Azkaban and goblet of fire, getting to the end and thinking - WTF just happened, my mind is blown 😂

She does lay some false trails, although the clues are always there as to why they're false and what the right one is.

And she gets me every time!

I think the idea that the writing part is faster than the planning seems overoptimistic @BertieBotts!

Don’t like the GRRM series myself but sympathise with fans!

I’m still annoyed with Phillip Pullman for the follow ups to the Northern Lights trilogy, not the delays but the bleakness of the books, when they came, and some of the sexual violence themes. Will still buy the final one though and hope it will arrive and for some kind of light in it!

for the next book my money is on autumn 2027 😨 hope the phone call isn’t Rokeby’s death.

Good idea @RubieChewsDay that it could be something that takes Cormoran away from the office immediately for a bit.

Oh - it’s October, finally! Had completely forgotten that all the reading I’ve been feverishly engaged in lately has only been to fill in the bleak, meaningless months until the Northern Lights finale. 😂

Eagerly awaiting the Book of Dust finale, too but agree the bleakness of the last was dreadful. I don’t think I’ve ever been so distraught by a book as when Lyra had that experience (I’m not sure if spoilers allowed). How alone she has been and how emotionally and physically battered she is just compounds all the things we know women and girls go through and just…. Ughh. Rarely cry reading books, but the last one broke me. I’m desperately hoping it all turns around in the finale. Philip Pullman is such a better writer than JKR I wish more people read and appreciated his books, although I know he’s a huge seller just not to the extent. That said i agree with many pp she is absolutely excellent at plotting and world building and I love her work. If Harry Potter had ever been given the nuance and emotional complexity of Lyra, he might not have taken over the world!