Troubled Blood, By Robert Galbraith

The latest Cormoran Strike novel by JK Rowling’s alter ego is more than 900 pages long. It’s not a difficult read, but it is so fucking long it’s hard to keep track of the multitude of characters and plot twists. There is an awful lot going on. Cormoran and Robin continue to navigate their tricky personal and professional relationship while managing their expanding business. Robin is trying to finalise her divorce and deal with her anxious family. Cormoran’s aunt in Cornwall is dying of cancer and his estranged father is trying to establish a relationship, much to Cormoran’s fury. His ex, Charlotte, is still sending provocative texts and trying to inveigle him. And that’s before we even get started on the convoluted murder mystery – the cold case of young doctor Margot Bamborough’s disappearance in 1975. Was she an undisclosed victim of a notorious serial killer? Did she run away from a cold and uncaring husband? Was her ex boyfriend involved? And what about the complicated relationships in her GP practice? Galbraith canvasses all this and more in minute detail, which is for the most part interesting but occasionally excruciating. Several storylines and one whole section (concerning a visit from Robin’s brother) could have been omitted without losing anything relevant to the main plot. A good editor would have done so to the book’s benefit and would also have corrected a few grammatical errors, but who would edit JK Rowling? She draws together most of the various threads pretty well in a satisfying conclusion, but it takes so long to get there it’s kind of anti-climactic.