A Cold Case and Warming Hearts (Troubled Blood book REVIEW)

Ask anyone who their favorite fictional private eye is, and you’ll find you’ve cast a pretty wide net—granted, one in which some of the same, bigger, fish show up again and again—but ask for their favorite detecting duo, and the resulting catch will likely be noticeably smaller. [Not that the latter won’t also include some repeats; great writing and plotting, as in blood, will always out.]

Me? Honestly, for my all-time faves, I’m torn between a couple of dynamic, modern duos [which sounds way too superhero-y for this particular discussion, but here we are]: Lynley and Havers (from the mighty pen of Elizabeth George), and Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)’s Strike and Robin. [Yes, I know, I know. Technically, I should call her “Ellacott”, because a) “and Robin” also skews way too superhero-y, and b) going with last names would be tidier, but… to me, she’s Robin, because she feels more like a good friend. <insert shrugging emoticon here>]

So, now that I finally got around to tackling Robert Galbraith’s most-recent behemoth, otherwise known as Troubled Blood, I’m all in for Camp Cormoran-and-Robin. [See? No, just no. I’m gonna stay with Strike and Robin.]

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Since successfully solving a handful of cases that garnered mega publicity, the detective offices of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott have had no shortage of new cases, or—thankfully—funds. [Not that these two are jetting off on any fancy holidays or living in the laps of luxury, but at least the rents, partners, and staff are now always paid… which is a major step up from when we first met Strike and his fledgling agency, in 2013’s The Cuckoo’s Calling, which I reviewed way-back-when, here.]

During the interim, a few other things happened, as well. Strike wound up paying for his temp secretary, Robin, to take detective classes, after which he eventually made her a full partner. Strike’s long-time, on-again-off-again girlfriend—from whom he made that memorable break so long ago—got married… to someone else. And Robin, who had been with her boyfriend/fiancé forever, got married… then split up, less than a year later, after discovering… well, a major transgression, on his part. [Life, you know? It marches on.]

When we pick up with Troubled Blood, it’s no great surprise that things are yet more hectic at the agency. Strike and Robin now have three contractors working for them as detectives, as well as a full-time secretary (whom Strike has an active dislike for, but that’s sometimes what happens when you have a business partner who also has a say in the hiring of folks), and a roster of active cases filling up everyone’s working hours. 

So, of course, that’s exactly when a case which Strike—and Robin, when they discuss it—can’t turn down, comes along.

While on a visit to his beloved, ailing aunt, Strike (and his distinctive—and now, well-publicized—appearance) catches the attention of a woman in a bar… not because the woman (who is there with her wife) is interested like that, but because she recognizes the famous detective… and has a case in dire need of solving. 

The case in question? When she was an infant, the woman’s mother went missing. As in disappeared, without a trace. It was—conveniently—put down to the work of a serial killer, who’d been active during the same time and vicinity, but no body was ever found, nor did the convicted killer actually claim her as one of his victims.

The (rather substantial) catch? This is a cold, cold case… forty years cold, which means a good number of the people who knew the missing woman, way back when, are probably dead (or nearly so). 

But, partly because of his own troubled childhood—the unrecognized, bastard son of a rock star, whose affectionate (but hopelessly-flighty) mom left him more times than he can even remember—Strike feels a strong pull to try his [their, counting Robin] hand at solving this long-cold case, if doing so might help put this woman’s mind a bit at ease.

The (not-so-surprising) bugaboo? Tackling a case so very long shelved and (almost completely) forgotten—one from another century, no less—is just as difficult as expected, what with long-dead or impossible-to-trace witnesses and incomplete or missing documents… but made much more so by the fact that the first inspector handling it was… seriously troubled. [Think “bat$h!# crazy”, and you’re there.] Going over the inspector’s case notes—covered in bizarre references to the occult, astrology, tarot cards, and other hand-drawn mystical notations which seemingly make no logical sense, whatsoever—Strike and Robin begin having second (and third) thoughts about agreeing to attempt solving this case.

On the other hand, even this mass of confusion is a welcome reprieve from the, by turns, aggravating, sad, depressing, and scary things that are going on in their non-work lives. [You know how, no matter how busy you already are, something else inevitably happens, to throw a spanner in the works and completely discombobulate that fragile balance you're trying to maintain? Yeah, that happens here, too.]

The best thing either Strike or Robin can say is that at least their working relationship is a great one… even as less-than-welcome thoughts (feelings!!) insist on intruding into their carefully-managed equilibrium…

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The major case in question in Troubled Blood is actually only one of a few the agency is working on, and I really appreciate that Galbraith takes ample time to keep us in the loop on the other cases, as well. (The idea that any detective agency—as with the police, or a law practice—only deals with one case at a time, is naive; all of these professions require the ability for those involved to split their time and energy—their focus—among multiple spinning plates, and we get a great sense of that, here.) And, each of the other cases is genuinely interesting. [That’s good writing, to achieve all of that.]

The resolutions—to the things which are, indeed, resolved—are uniformly satisfying. [Granted, in a book that hovers just shy of the 1k-page mark, there’s certainly enough space to satisfy a lot of plots and subplots, so thank goodness for that.] The major case is that of the four-decades-missing-woman, however, and it’s absolutely a doozy… with an “I-so-didn’t-see-that-coming” finale. I enjoyed the getting-there immensely.

The underlying heart of the story, though, is, well… just that, actually: the heart(s) of the business partners, who’ve been coworkers and friends for years, now, are at the point when each has, at last, begun to realize how very much the other means to them. [Those books where a mystery and a romance are all neatly tied up by the final page, done and dusted? Yeah, Galbraith doesn’t write those books, and hooray for that.] This feels like the all-too-real sort of messy progression that happens in real life, and there’s a lot of pleasure to be had in experiencing this one vicariously, through these two incredibly likable, relatable characters.

Troubled Blood is the fifth in the Strike/Robin series, and—with the sixth entry set to drop later this summer(!)—now is the perfect time to get caught up, if you haven’t yet done so. [Or, you know, to start from the very beginning. Or to do a re-read. This is Galbraith/Rowling we’re talking about here… and these, as with everything else this prolific author has written, are eminently readable and repeatable.] 

~GlamKitty