This is one of my all-time favourite series of books. I love detective fiction anyway, but the Cormoran Strike novels have something special. The characters are so unique and strongly drawn. I love the realism, the will-they-won’t-they tension between Strike and Robin, and the way the personal subplots (if not the mysteries themselves) always feel grounded in real life rather than too neat or contrived.
Before I talk about the book itself, I do want to acknowledge the controversy around J.K. Rowling. Her views are completely at odds with my own, and I don’t agree with her on a lot of things. But I continue to read her Robert Galbraith books because I’ve grown attached to these characters and this world. It’s possible, for me at least, to love a story even when I don’t share the author’s worldview.
The Hallmarked Man begins with a pretty gruesome discovery. A dismembered body is found in the vault of a silver shop in London. A client hires Strike and Robin to find out the truth, and the investigation winds through the world of silversmiths, the Freemasons, and family secrets. As always, the case is layered and complex, but what I really love about these books is the partnership at the centre of them.
The last book in the series (The Running Grave) was honestly far too long. I enjoyed it, but it could have used a serious trim. This one, thankfully, was shorter, which I really appreciated. It felt tighter and more focused. That said, I do think The Hallmarked Man was my least favourite in terms of story. It started to feel a bit repetitive with lots of scenes of Strike and Robin having the same conversations, circling around their misunderstandings, getting frustrated, and pulling back again. I found myself wanting something new between them.
Still, I love these characters too much to ever stop reading. It’s hard to see exactly how Strike and Robin will ever work as a couple, but I can’t wait for J.K. Rowling to finally get us there.
3 stars: I enjoyed this one.
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