Book info

• Title Troubled Blood
• Author Robert Galbraith
• Year 2020
• Genres Mystery, Crime

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough - who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974. Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one forty years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. And Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention, as well as battling her own feelings about Strike. As Strike and Robin investigate Margot's disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. And they learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly...

Thoughts

The long-awaited fifth book in the Cormoran Strike series arrived, amidst something of a storm around the author behind the author. But if you set that aside, it’s a different style of detective novel to the first four. Rather than investigating a case that gets more and more dangerous by the moment, this one had very little in the way of active danger. The team are looking into a cold case, where most of the main suspects are elderly or passed away.

It’s a good mystery at the heart, with a few twists and turns along the way. I wasn’t so bothered by the astrological stuff, rolling my eyes occasionally just as Strike himself did. But I liked the case very gradually revealing itself over the course of the year. And it was interesting to see the new dynamic in the agency itself as Robin adjusts to a management role as well as the normal investigative work.

Of course what we all actually come back for though is the will-they-won’t-they between Strike and Robin, and big strides forward were made in that regard. The presents at the end were just adorable. Overall it was a lengthy but ultimately rewarding read.

Rating: 4 / 5