The Ink Black Heart (Cormoran Strike Series #6)

by Robert Galbraith

Overview

The latest installment in the highly acclaimed, internationally bestselling Strike series finds Cormoran and Robin ensnared in another winding, wicked case.

PRAISE FOR THE STRIKE SERIES:

"Magnificent"  — Sunday Times
 
"[Galbraith’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." — Bill Sheehan, Washington Post

"Finely honed, superbly constructed" — Daily Mail

"A scrupulous plotter and master of misdirection, Galbraith keeps the pages turning." — Guardian

"The work of a master storyteller" — Daily Telegraph

"This is a crime series deeply rooted in the real world, where brutality and ugliness are leavened by the oh‑so‑human flaws and virtues of Galbraith's irresistible hero and heroine." — USA Today

"Addictive, murderous fun." — Vox
 
"Compulsively readable." — People

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316413039
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	08/30/2022
Series:	Cormoran Strike Series , #6
Pages:	1024
Sales rank:	1,102
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.70(d)

About the Author

Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, bestselling author of the Harry Potter series and The Casual Vacancy. Rowling’s original intention for writing under Galbraith was for the books to be judged on their own merit, and to establish Galbraith as a well-regarded name in crime in its own right. The Strike Novels have topped the national and international bestseller lists and the series has been adapted for television, produced by Brontë Film and Television.

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/23/2023

In Galbraith’s stellar sixth whodunit featuring London PIs Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott (after 2020’s Troubled Blood), Ellacott is consulted by a distraught Edie Ledwell, the cocreator of the hit animated series The Ink Black Heart. The bizarre program features a disembodied heart, a ghost, and other residents of a graveyard, and proved so successful on YouTube that it was purchased by Netflix. That switch, and rumors of a movie adaptation, infuriated some members of the passionate fandom. Edie has been persecuted online by someone called Anomie, who has shockingly accurate information about her personal life. Robin declines to help, citing a full workload and lengthy waiting list, only to feel guilty when two people affiliated with the program are stabbed, one fatally, in the cemetery that inspired the show’s setting. She gets a chance at partial redemption when her firm’s retained to identify Anomie. Galbraith (the pseudonym of J.K. Rowling) captures perfectly the venom unleashed when people can hide behind virtual personas and egg each other on, and plausibly sustains suspense, despite the book’s length, about the murderer’s identity until the end. This impressive series shows no sign of losing steam. Agent: Neil Blair, Blair Partnership (U.K.). (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2022

Last-minute news: Galbraith (the pseudonymous J.K. Rowling) returns on August 30 with the sixth book in the "Cormoran Strike" series. With a 500,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

2022-08-27
An overblown whodunit by Galbraith, nom de plume of one J.K. Rowling, pitting Robin Ellacott and Cormoran Strike against a murderous online troll.

On the internet, everyone can hear you scream. To boot, as a very bad actor named Anomie puts it, “nobody’s who they say they are.” Robin and Cormoran have quite the task on their hands when Edie Ledwell, a cartoonist whose show, The Ink Black Heart, is a hit on YouTube and has just been bought by Netflix, turns up to ask for help in chasing down an online group, Anomie at its helm, that has built an online game around her show. Grumbles Anomie, “She’s shitting all over the fans, saying they’re thick for liking our game.” Edie doesn’t last long; conveniently, she winds up in London’s Highgate Cemetery, ready for planting. All suspicion in what's now a murder case points to Anomie, a slippery character. Is he (or she) a criminal mastermind or just some creepy kid living in mom’s basement? It takes Robin and Cormoran reams of online chat–thick prose to discover the truth, sussing out the identities of characters with noms de net like Paperwhite and Fiendly1. Online identities are fluid, of course, which doesn’t help when the problem is how to lay down a coherent storyline, but it soon becomes apparent that, indeed, no one is quite who they say they are. One more thing is sure: Rowling, the subject of recent controversy, plays out her current preoccupations against an up-to-the-minute backdrop: Edie is accused of “multiple alleged transgressions, particularly against the disabled,” while a contemporary comes under the gun for having “ ‘misgendered’ a prominent trans woman,” minor plot points in a belabored narrative dotted with appearances by pedophiles, neo-Nazi cultists, “beta males,” incels, an obnoxious pickup artist, and a young woman who ends her sentences on a “rising inflection.” Who did the dastardly deed? After a thousand pages of this, the reader is likely to no longer care.

Long, loose, and lax.

Kirkus Reviews

"The sixth and most complex novel yet in a unique series. . .  The author does a masterly job of keeping all plot elements in play and in balance, and the complications only add to the satisfaction of the mystery's eventual solution."—Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher