The Hallmarked Man: does it get better?

[friedaklein]

A third of the way through, and gosh it's tedious. I have enjoyed all the others in the Strike series, but this one really needs editing plus the Strike-Robin romantic dithering is getting old.
Should I persevere?

Well, you kind of have to, or you won’t know where you are for the next one!

You do know there’s a vast thread somewhere - from the time it came out?

It’s no ‘Running Grave’, that’s for sure.

Yes, persevere! I found it a bit slow to get going and at times I had to double check who the various characters were, but I was gripped by the end, so much so that I almost immediately re-read it, and enjoyed it more from the beginning the second time around as I could hold on to the threads of the different ‘possibilities’ better.

The investigation is super boring but the cliffhanger is important. Even Strike says he didn’t enjoy the investigation, you and me both Cormoran!

Yes, definitely worth persisting

DH was underwhelmed so I read it with low expectations, and loved it.

Its not the best Strike by any stretch but you'll need to get to the end for the cliffhanger.

I loved it

I listen to them. I'm finding listening to them a second time is so different. Lots missed. It is a good book overall but I can't wait to listen to it again. I didn't find all the characters quite difficult to follow. I sometimes which each chapter would finish with a visual summary + just mug shots of characters and bullet points!

I am on chapter 56 and am finding it hard to understand / remember / hold on to the many characters connected to the investigation. It probably doesn’t help that I am reading it intermittently.

The only thing kind of keeping me going are the chapters focusing on Robin and Strike.

Cliffhanger at the end?

I agree that the “will they won’t they” element is getting tedious. And I don’t feel the connection between both of them - it’s described mechanically IMO.

It does! I love Robert Galbraith and gave up for 6 months after about 100 pages. Keep plodding and it’s worth it in the end!

Yes, definitely keep going

I loved the bit in hallmarked man when robyn talks about how visits to the GP/doctor go. You'd never get that in a male authored book.

Ok, so I should keep going for the cliffhanger! Thanks.
And thread my way through all the boring Masonic lore and similar thick necked men. The classic JKR " e's wiv me" dialogue is beginning to annoy me.
She's too big to be edited.

Don't hold out hopes for a satisfactory explanation. I'm not sure it makes sense. (There's a thread discussing it all somewhere) It was a good read though imo.

Can't remember the cliffhanger now!

I usually hop between listening and reading, when it comes to Strike books as I'm so keen to stay in the story. I almost exclusively listened to the Hallmarked Man; the phonetic dialogue was so much easier to hear than to read. The narrator made all the difference, and I enjoyed it even more the second time around.

Avoiding that thread in case I get spoilt.

I've listened to all the Strike books, which are brilliantly done by Robert Glenister, and he brings them to life but I'm honestly struggling to recall THM now. JKR seriously needs an editor!

I know what you mean, the start is slow, but she really does pull it all together at the end, it wasn't my favourite, although for me, not as tricky as 'Ink Black Heart' but I was very glad I stayed with it. I can't wait for the next one.

It’s the most tedious one of the series and the only one I didn’t finish — skipped to the end and still didn’t know what had happened really.
Too many characters and just dragged on and on.
I was disappointed with it.

I normally love her books but yeah with this one I stopped giving shit who the guy in the vault was who killed him. I did read to the end, I suppose you need to know how it ends as it’s a cliffhanger.

I’m on my second go-round with this book, and not finding it particularly gripping, to be honest. My first go was marred by trying to read it with a fuzzy brain from a flu bug; I finished it with some difficulty and promptly forgot pretty much everything about it. This time around I’m struggling to maintain interest, though I’m finding it easier than “The Ink-Black Heart” which had my spirits sinking every time we entered into another tedious chat room dialogue!

I’ll persist, of course, but as someone said earlier, it’s no “Running Grave”. By the way, the Robert Glenister audiobooks are all available on YouTube, and are uniformly excellent.

I listened to the ink black heart again recently and it just screams jk's experience of trolling. I am guessing most of those interactions she had seen online at some point. The bit where Edie says at the beginning that people thought they owned her idea and thought she should step aside from her own creation. You could feel the hurt!