‘Lethal White’ by Robert Galbraith

(Cormoran Strike # 4) If you’ve read the first three in this series (The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil) it’s definitely worth going on with this brick of a book (650 pages). The books in this series do need to be read in order. Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) seems to be in the same pattern of writing as Harry Potter–the books keep getting longer as the series goes on. And with this fourth instalment the crime/mystery seems to take a back seat to the relationship between the main detective war veteran Cormoran Strike and his agency partner Robin Ellacott. I enjoyed hanging out with these two again, and Rowling’s writing is good, but I was a little disappointed and found the book overlong. The crime and the reasons for it were tediously complicated and not compelling enough. After the cliffhanger ending of book 3, Robin and Matthew’s relationship continues to be troubled as the detective agency meets with ever more success.