The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith review – a terrific, tightly plotted romp

With four murder inquiries in play, JK Rowling’s eighth Cormoran Strike novel avoids the page-padding longeurs of previous volumes – but will he finally tell Robin how he feels about her?In his popular BBC series Just One Thing, the late Michael Mosley made the case for resistance training. Lifting weights, he explained, not only builds stronger muscles, it also boosts the immune system, maintains a healthy heart and improves brain function. Best of all, it can be done in your kitchen, using ordinary domestic items: pints of milk in place of dumbbells, say, or squats wearing a backpack full of books.Anyone intending to use Robert Galbraith’s Strike novels for this purpose would be advised to seek the advice of a GP. The Hallmarked Man may not be the heftiest of the eight so far – it does not even make it into the top three – but it still clocks in at a cool 912 pages. Galbraith’s tendency to whopperdom has in the past elicited a fair amount of griping from critics, me among them, who argued that judicious pruning would better serve her plots and her charismatic private detective duo, the sweary one-legged army veteran Cormoran Strike and his brave, decent business partner Robin Ellacott. Not that it changed anything. The books remained resolutely huge (as did sales – by 2024, a staggering 20 million books had been sold in over 50 countries). Galbraith, otherwise known as JK Rowling, has never been one to bow to her detractors. Continue reading...

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