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. As Strike and his partner 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.
... a wide-ranging novel filled with enough characters, incidents and alternating story lines to more than justify its exorbitant length ... Troubled Blood’s central mystery is a strong one, and watching it unfold over the course of a protracted investigation is one of the novel’s great pleasures ... The author pays as much attention to the quotidian details of her characters’ lives as she does to the drama at the novel’s heart ... Rowling’s greatest novelistic gifts are her ability to spin wild, intricate plots (witness the astrological elements of this latest book), and to create colorful, highly individual characters who come instantly alive on the page ... Controversies to the side, Rowling remains that rarest of creatures: a natural, supremely confident storyteller.
... a sprawling and eventful saga in which the central cold case shares space with other investigations, along with dramatic incidents in the detectives’ private lives ... Balancing social comedy, surprising twists and Grand Guignol horror, this doorstopping volume proves a formidable entertainment from the first page to the last.
For those Strike aficionados long captivated by the will-they-won’t-they relationship between the detective and his agency partner, Robin Ellacott, there is much to be savoured ... Galbraith’s unhurried examination of their emotional turmoil adds depth to both characters and convincingly stokes the simmering tensions between them ... A scrupulous plotter and master of misdirection, Galbraith keeps the pages turning but, while much of Troubled Blood is terrific fun, it is hardly a hair-raising ride. With jeopardy thin on the ground, the languid pace and the elderliness of the mystery (and indeed most of the suspects caught up in it) combine to give the enterprise the unthreateningly cosy air of old-fashioned Sunday night TV drama. When the denouement finally comes, it is not quite satisfying enough to justify the page count. Strike and Ellacott, however, remain one of crime fiction’s most engaging duos.
