As with JK’s other mystery novels, this is well-constructed. The pacing is superb; the emotional beats fall right where they’re supposed to. The characters are realistic and compelling, although not fascinating in their own right.

Lethal White is halfway through the romantic arc at the center of the series. We all know Cormoran and Robin are going to end up together. We all know Matthew is a jerk. Everything is inevitable, and we’re watching the progression as it happens. But it’s satisfying, in a certain way, and it moves the story along.

This novel has an interesting quality. Since Oedipus Rex, a lot of mystery novels have focused on long-past crimes. The sins of the past making themselves felt in the present. Generational curses, excavated and exorcised. That way, the detective can solve the mystery with wisdom, rather than mere cleverness. It’s almost a core principle of structuring one of these.

And this novel seems like a recapitulation of that principle. Scenes of violence dimly remembered by a child. Something about execution equipment. But it turns out that the crimes of the past aren’t that bad. They’re wicked, sure, but not murder. And certainly not as bad as we imagine. They’ve grown in power over the years, and by contemporary re-interpretation. It’s the crimes of the present that the forces of good actually need to deal with.

This is one more example of my Rowling opinion: When she has an established literary structure to work within, she excels.

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Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The third Cormoran Strike book, Career of Evil opens with the delivery of a foot. It’s the kind of thing that tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the book. Vonnegut once said, “readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.” Except for the actual identity of the killer, that’s true of Career of Evil. We pretty much know which tensions are going to build throughout, and how.

Working within an established narrative framework is where J.K. Rowling shines. It is not less creative or less artistic to write that way! It can be more difficult.

There are a few nice touches that deserve mention.

There’s a horror movie cliche where the man tells the woman to stay in the car/house/room/spaceship and she doesn’t. And then she dies. Rowling plays with this expectation throughout the novel. We know Robin is in danger — we have scenes of the villain stalking her! We know Cormoran is right to try and protect her. And we also know that she’s competent to handle the danger. And both main characters know all these things too.

Both of them know the danger; both of them respect her competence. So the conflict which, in a horror movie, is caused by mutual idiocy, is caused instead by mutual goodwill.

I also like that she gives us three possible killers right off the bat. In a traditional Christie-style detective novel, the whole milieu is under suspicion. There’s a delight in finding the villain in the least expected character. But here there’s no possibility of that; we know the three it might be from the start. That narrowed field ought to help the reader find the same clue the detective does. It didn’t work for me, but I never solve the case before Miss Marple or Cormoran Strike does.



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The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Sequel to The Cuckoo’s Calling, this book is better written. Or, maybe, I’ve gotten used to Galbraith’s prose style. It doesn’t have the third-person-omniscient-related problems the other had, at least.

Plot-wise, it’s very well constructed. Aspiring detective fiction authors should make a chart of the conflicts. Every situation that every character is in has some form of suspense-building conflict. At any moment there are four or five dominoes that Galbraith has set up. She could knock any of them down to cause her protagonist realistic trouble. And she’s set them all up so she can do it whenever is convenient for the plot. The leg, money, Robin’s fiancee, Strike’s ex, Strike’s dad, et cetera.

One problem with the plot is that much of the suspense of the last few chapters is arbitrary. Strike sends two friends to get two final pieces of evidence. But the narrative leaves out what they’re looking for. It omits all details about their instructions. So we’re not in suspense about something in the world of the book. The protagonist knows the information we want; but the narrator won’t tell us. It’s frustrating.

She does this so that the big reveal can happen all at once. And the big reveal in Silkworm is very, very good. I realized who the murderer was right on cue, from a clue that nobody in the story mentioned. That’s exquisite: chef’s kiss.

I only wish she had found another way to withhold the key information from me besides just… withholding it.

It reminds me of Muriel Spark’s A Far Cry From Kensington. I suppose writers have the right to set their novels in the world of publishing. It’s good that she waited for the second book in the series, though. Writers writing about writing gets boring quick; we have to know there’s more to it than that.

I wonder if the manner of the murder isn’t Rowling saying something to the Harry Potter fan-fiction community? In fact, I would be surprised if they haven’t dissected Silkworm to the tune of hundreds of pages. The plot yells that novels are symbolic. That they say something about their author’s lives. And then it yanks that idea away.

Maybe, in the end, it’s a version of Nabokov’s Symbols and Signs…



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The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Cuckoo’s Calling is a pretty good murder mystery. I’d say it scores an 8 on the Agatha Christie Scale. (Where Nemesis = 10 and At Bertram’s Hotel = 1.)

Reading this, I would say, proves conclusively that Harry Potter was not a fluke. Rowling should be as respected as her sales indicate.

I do have a problem with the ‘omniscient third person’ point of view. I don’t actually believe such a thing exists. But in any case, if you’re attempting it, you have to be a bit more careful than we see in The Cuckoo’s Calling. You see, anglophone readers assume that every sentence in the narrator’s voice has been filtered through the consciousness of one particular character. Authors let us know which character that is by narrating something only they could know.

If you switch back and forth between viewpoints, you have to be careful about any subjective information you narrate during the switch, because your readers won’t know which character’s subjectivity that information belongs to. There are a few trip-ups in this regard in The Cuckoo’s Calling, and it can be confusing.

Authors who want to write from multiple viewpoints should learn from Zadie Smith. She does a wonderful job of this.

The Cuckoo’s Calling has awesome potential as a series. She’s setting up lots and lots of relationships and complexity that she can draw on in later books. It’s going to be incredible, a couple of books from now, when Strike’s ex gets in trouble with the law. With multiple novels-worth of development already invested into their relationship, it’ll be gripping.



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