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!

Ah yes you might be right. Also not up to that but in my reread yet.

It’s a physiological response. Police officers who investigate the worst of child pornography sometimes are unable to control this physiological response of their bodies, which contributes hugely to the psychological trauma of this work. The arousal is not because they are sexually aroused by children being raped, but because the hindbrain is responding to a sexual act, bypassing the thinking brain’s horror and disgust at what is happening to the child.

This thread has been very helpful in helping me understand Robin’s passivity. Thank you. As a woman of a certain age who has long ago lost all patience with men’s shit, her inability to tell Murphy to fuck off whenever he criticised her was something I found teeth-grindingly frustrating. The football-match episode in which Murphy & his father behaved so obnoxiously while the women were expected to keep silent drove me absolutely bonkers. WHY did she feel the need to pretend to be happy whenever Murphy’s team scored a goal FFS!!! But I now understand all this a lot better. I’ve had the great good fortune never to have been raped or to have been in an abusive relationship, and I hadn’t appreciated how this good fortune coloured my response to women less fortunate. I didn’t understand that passivity can be a trauma response/defense mechanism that can play out decades after. It has made me re-examine my impatience with women who allow men to treat them like shit.

If anyone's getting kidnapped, I want it to be Strike & then Robin will have to run the agency & work the case herself, without Strike as a safety net. She'll rescue him &, having been going to therapy for a while at this point, she'll realise what she wants & they'll live happily ever after.

I enjoyed the book. It galloped along. The author can paint a superb portrait with a few words, I'm highly invested in the regular cast members, and I didn't find the plot over-complex.

Going back and reading the first four books after getting hooked in by Troubled Blood, I was surprised about Matthew being portrayed as a full on pantomime villain right from the start rather than being more subtly unpleasant. And in THM I was a bit disappointed that Ryan Murphy was also plastered with glaring red flags. But I accept that Robin was very young at the start of the series, and hasn't worked through whatever pulls her towards a particular type of abusive man so what she sees won't be what I'm seeing from outside the pages and 30 years older.

I'd have liked Kim to have been a little less floridly drawn too. It was too obvious from the start that she was a bad'un, and what sort of bad'un she was.

I really, really, don't want Strike and Robin to get together. I think they'd be a total disaster in a romantic relationship, although the mutual attraction probably gets the best out of both of them at work. I'm not convinced that Robin isn't right about Strike's motive for declaring his love when he did. And the roller coaster of Strike getting a gleam in his eye at the prospect of time alone with Robin and then something happen to sabotage it became mildly tedious after a few repetitions.

When Martin told the Excalibur story, I thought a twist might be coming involving the Masonic dagger and a Masham connection to Robin's stalker.

I've just finished. I was disappointed with the ending because I read a comment from someone saying the book was really satisfying. I'd been thinking all the way through that the frustrating bits would be worth it in the end because they would finally tell each other how they feel and it would ne all lovely 😢

I did love it, as I love the whole series, but Robin did annoy me because it felt like she was being a massive hypocrite for judging how Strike treated women but then she was stringing Murphy along the whole time agreeing to move in with him when she knew she didnt want to, and lying to him all the time.
On the other hand, not telling him where to go when he was being an absolute dick!
It was just a repeat of the Matthew situation.

I really hope in the next book she gets rid of Murphy and there's some more lighthearted bits.
I miss them being best friends and making each other laugh, and the road trips in the land rover with biscuits.

I hope there's more Barcley and Midge in the next book too.

Notice how she didn’t respond to Strike with, “I don’t love you”, but with “I can’t do to Ryan what Matthew did to me”

Thought that spoke volumes.

I agree. He'd been telling her one way or another all through the book how he felt. And it was hardly fair when she said he'd never tried to do anything about it when she was single -- he tried to kiss her outside the Ritz and she pulled away! It's really very normal that he backed off and tried to get over her with someone else after that. It would have been quite odd if he'd pined and remained miserably celibate, surely? That's not to say that I think she was wrong not to kiss him, because at that point he very well might have decided afterwards that it was all a big mistake and not worth risking the agency over, but it's not reasonable of her to expect him to lay his heart out before her without any encouragement at all after she'd knocked him back like that.

Ok, I have a question. Has anyone else ever been in a real life will-they-won't-they sort of situation and found themselves looking back on it with fresh eyes after reading these books?! I was in 'friendships' of this kind at least twice. One of those I think was mostly a question of timing. The other I eventually wrote off as him just not being very interested. But then one night in bed after reading one of these novels I found myself thinking about it and suddenly wondering about a few things that happened between us, and now I'm not so sure. It doesn't matter it was almost 20 years ago, I'm happily married, and so (as far as I know) is the man I was then in love with but for about an hour I felt weirdly sad about it. Which goes to show, I think, how well J K Rowling does it, and I just wondered if anyone else had had a similar experience.

She’s an over thinker with low self esteem so him telling her subtly is pointless she was more likely to think he is trolling her.

she will go off and think about it and realise that he was telling her and he did try to kiss her that time and she never told him why she pulled back etc etc. I think her stairwell reaction was mainly down to the stress of being put on the spot when she already has to somehow put off Murphy.

I thought it was really good 😁 I know it’s a book, but it’s also pretty realistic. How many people who rush into a happy ever after actually get that? Strike needs to put the work in to being stable and reliable with regards to romantic relationships and Robin needs to deal with all the trauma she has sadly lived through so she feels safe in being herself with men.

I’m sure we’ve all spent enough time in Relationships to know you can’t love someone better and that the giddy rush of joy at the start of something cannot sustain a long term relationship which has fundamental issues.

Red herrings abound in this one. I found it a lot less stressful to read than the last one as I was so worried about Robin.

Ah you see I disagree on Robin and Martin. JKR said one of the book’s themes was parenting, and I think Robin did a good job of coaching Martin into realising he was being ridiculous.

Yes, I think you're right that she'll go off and think about it. I mean, she did realise when she saw the bracelet that it meant SOMETHING. And she also knew when he said the thing in the car about 'when you can't get what you want, you take what you can get' that he could be talking about her. I think it must be the case that she's somewhat unwilling to get into a relationship with Strike because she, like him, is frightened of the ramifications for the business, and also because the emotional stakes would be very much higher for her with Strike than with someone she likes but feels a bit detached with, like Murphy or Matthew. Presumably the next book will involve Robin realising that she too feels ready to take that chance. I really hope the next book won't be 1) Robin accepts dreadful gaslighting alcoholic rage issue Murphy's proposal; 2) Strike accepts that it's not going to happen with Robin and throws himself into a relationship with some new dollybird who seems really perfect for him, even though secretly he's pining for Robin but putting on a brave face because she rejected him again, and 3) when Perfect Dollybird comes along Robin realises that she really did love Strike but now it's too late etc etc etc etc. That would be...frustrating. But on the other hand, if I trust anyone to do anything, it's J K Rowling to write a good story.

That is a very good point. Also I meant to say in my last post in response to yours, but then got carried away talking about Robin and Strike: I love your username. Hat tip.

I once had a similar experience to Robin finding Ryan’s alcohol. Not with a boyfriend (thank goodness) but a housemate, I was 22 and a student. He and another housemate who had recently moved out to live with her boyfriend were 25/26 and working. I knew he drank a fair bit, but hadn’t twigged the extent.

I was going on holiday and packing to move out afterwards. I couldn’t find a suitcase of mine that I hadn’t used for ages. I looked in a box room that my housemate mainly used for music and computing and was also a kind of dumping/storage area.

I found my suitcase, under loads of other stuff. It was heavy and full, so opened it. it was full of empty spirit bottles and many opened and unopened official looking letters, which seemed to be to do with debts 😨

The icy feeling described in the book captures it well. Luckily my housemate was at work. I went and sat down - I was shaky. Got a sugary coffee. decided that I was leaving imminently and although we’d got on well we weren’t friends so I’d pretend not to know.

I found an empty holdall style bag of his in the dumping area and moved the letters into that, zipped it up and shoved the bag at the bottom of the stuff. I put all the bottles into bin bags, did two trips on foot to the recycling bank. Took my suitcase into my room and packed it. said nothing to him. Left on good terms.

After I moved out to another city and he phoned and tried to claim that I owed him £250 for ‘bills’ I realised he and my other housemate had overcharged me for rent and other things while I’d lived there. I said no to his request and never saw or heard from him again.

I think he did the drinking bottle, ‘exercising’ thing too. Sad.

I only told one person at the time and not many since: I think due to embarrassment about my naivety and even stupidity, eg he’d regularly given me lifts on nights out (probably when over the limit).

There is a point where Murphy is drinking water from a bottle while driving in the car. By this stage I think we’re supposed to have twigged before Robin.

The thing which makes me think she’ll stay with Murphy (although not convinced she’ll agree to be engaged) is actually something Wardle said. He tells Strike three times Murphy is a shit while drunk. Twice he says he’s unpleasant but the third time - right at the end - says he chases anything in a skirt while drunk. So he’s going to cheat. Iverdale seems quite nice (and they need another Met contact now Wardle has left) so I suspect she and Wardle will remain a thing.

Which mean, I suspect, that Murphy will cheat with Kim Cochran. It would be right on brand for her.

This is a great prediction. Kim will go and work for Navabi, she’ll approach Ryan for help with a case and he’ll take the opportunity to show up Strike but in the process he’ll sleep with Kim. The setup is right there. It’s the one thing (apart from violence etc) that Robin absolutely cannot rationalise away.

I had kept away from this thread but finished this morning.

Love all your thoughts and theories!

I was absolutely devastated when I turned to read Acknowledgements - thought it was the last book and just found out there will be more, thank fuck.

I enjoyed it, it was less convoluted than IBH which I couldn't easily follow.
I sped read the whole thing trying to find out what would happen with Robin and Strike.

I wish people (in TV, films, books!) would just bloody communicate better!! I love that the whole way through Robin was talking herself into loving Murphy ('she thought -knew- she loved him' etc); she knows it's doomed, she will not accept (or accept for his birthday then let him down afterwards) and eventually get with Strike, pls pls don't kill one of them off JKR!!

Oh, and as a real detective, I was upset that she used the term Breaking and Entering which is an Americanism as far as I'm concerned (we would just say burglary)
Also in Strike's police interview the interviewing officer said he'd waived his right to silence, or similar, which is a glaringly odd thing that a police officer would never say!

There was another term about waiving his right to a solicitor when we he was being interviewed as a witness; you're not entitled to free and independent solicitor when you're a witness/victim although you can bring your own if you want to.

Just.. odd language

I finished last night. Then I barely slept/slept badly.
I need a slower reread now.

I also guess the villan this time - first time ever, though really almost everyone was a villan in this book.

I have horrible thoughts we have not seen the last of Bijou & I suspect Strike is the father of her daughter. Strike made a big deal with Rokeby's SHL that he had actual irrefutable proof that he wasn't the father, but I don't think he did have this? He only had Bijou's word re the DNA test results didn't he? He didn't actually see them himself and Bijoy didn't send him a copy? Or did I miss something? If Strike doesnt have an actual copy of the DNA test then we only have Bijou's word and we know she is a liar fixated on what she wants and only that. SHL got Culpepper's story stopped, but no one has seen the DNA results? Surely this is an important loose thread.

I’ve just had a thought. Strike said ‘I’ll leave this agency before you do’. Hurt by her decision to stay with Murphy, might he in fact do that? Split the business??

I think Bijou emailed Strike a copy of the test results, so he's definitely not the father.

Excellent post & very true.

Robin is a mess & the unresolved trauma, impacted and added too at Chapman Farm, is all playing out in THM. She can't make proper decisions as she is stuck in a loop of coping/denial/avoidance. Her internal dialogue is screaming to be with Strike, and constantly pulling her away from Murphy, but she is so unable to access these feelings and trust herself, she is stuck in a loop of false safety, staying put, marching on the spot.

I will explore more on the reread but yes to this book showing so many ways women are exploited/harmed/harrassed/used/discarded by men. While Strike suffers so much shocking violence in this book (his poor head), he is able to weather these savage attacks & physical harms quite well. Even the glimpses of PTSD he is still experiencing re the IED explosion aren't comparable. His expereinces are very differently to Robins. But the women in THM are not able to shrug off/bandage the harms they are constantly exposed too.

The process is the punishment, not the spade to the side of the head.