Mulholland Books, 650 pp.
Published September 18, 2018
When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike’s office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic.
Trying to get to the bottom of Billy’s story, Strike and Robin Ellacott—once his assistant, now a partner in the agency—set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside.
And during this labyrinthine investigation, Strike’s own life is far from straightforward: his newfound fame as a private eye means he can no longer operate behind the scenes as he once did. Plus, his relationship with his former assistant is more fraught than it ever has been—Robin is now invaluable to Strike in the business, but their personal relationship is much, much trickier than that.
You'll LOVE it if...you're invested in the personal lives of Strike, Robin, and Matthew.
Career of Evil's ending might not qualify as a cliffhanger—the murder mystery was handily solved—but readers were certainly left gasping over the personal lives of the central characters. Lethal White picks up right where its predecessor left off, taking us through the fraught wedding reception and honeymoon of Robin and Matthew, before taking a modest jump one year into the future. The newlyweds' floundering marriage moves to the forefront, oftentimes overtaking the mystery of a potential murder, bringing Matthew's paranoia, Robin's ambition, and Strike's conflicted emotional bond with his partner to a head. After three novels of slow-simmering tension between the trio, it's immensely satisfying to finally see these characters act on their suspicions—for better or worse—rather than continue to quietly seethe.
You'll LIKE it if...you read the Strike series purely for the thrill of a good mystery.
Unlike the previous three books, this new case doesn't begin with the discovery of a dead body. Instead Cormoran must follow up on the ramblings of a young man who may or may not be mentally ill, introducing a new set of questions not yet encountered in the Strike series. Galbraith (aka, J.K. Rowling) followed an enjoyable yet predictable pattern in the first three mysteries; each one was executed so well, it hardly mattered that the formula was one readers had encountered before. This new little wrinkle helps keep the series feeling fresh, without straying too far from what it made it work in the first place.
You MAY NOT LIKE it if...you don't like to mix politics in with your who-dun-its.
Many of the subjects of Strike's investigation belong to the upper echelons of British society and by including them, the narrative strays into a myriad of opinions on how the country's class structure informs everything from appropriate restaurants to take lunch at, to the more shadowy dealings of the national government. This political stance sometimes works—one big secret about a family profiting off of things that were once legal to produce, but no longer are, raises the question of whether one ought to forgive certain behaviors if they were acceptable in a given time period—but more often it comes across as a little heavy-handed, bordering on preachy. It never proves too distracting from the mystery or the beloved characters trying to solve it, but one does hope that this isn't a sign of things to come. Authors are of course entitled to use their books as a platform for their personal agendas, but it's questionable whether this particular series of mystery novels is a good choice.
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