Lethal White, Chapters 57-65: Dinner with Raff, the breakdown on the verge, and the diggers in the dell.

Chapter 57:  While Strike is interviewing Billy, Robin is, with some trepidation, making plans for her post-Flobberworm existence, which, it seems, will involve living in some tiny rented room in a multi-person household. She is stubbornly refusing to seek help from or even tell anyone apart from Vanessa, who has proved herself a good sounding board and drinking buddy. While keeping the separation from Strike, she continues to work on the Chiswell case, and, when he calls her, is able to report that both Raff and Tegan had agreed to be interviewed. She is also alarmed when Strike suggests digging in the dell. 

Lethal White Chapters 51-56: From Flick's to Della's to Billy's, plus dumping the Flobberworm.

Both Robin and Barclay are remarkably adept at infiltrating leftist groups. It was impressive when Sam, in about six weeks, has become Jimmy's right-hand man, trusted not just to search Flick's apartment but to go to the hospital to see Billy. But "Bobbi Cunliffe" is so good that within 24 hours of meeting her, Flick is not only asking her to parties but inviting her to move in to her flat. By the end of the evening, Bobbi is walking out of the party with a photo of Jimmy's note in her pocket, while both Jimmy and Flick remark that she is the "real deal." 

Strike is at home dreaming about buying Chiswell House with Charlotte when Robin calls with news of her discovery. After dissecting the letter, and recognizing the Catullus quotation on it,  Strike sits down to go over the Chiswell file again, using his "People-places-things" methodology. He is struck by the unusual number of pairs among the people involved. He makes himself a lengthy to-do list. His thoughts go back to Charlotte right before he goes back to bed, but he drifts off thinking of a Catullus poem about throwing off long-established love; and his dream takes him back to Chiswell House, alone. 

Lethal White, Chapters 43-50: From Steda Cottage to Charlotte at Franco's

Chapter 43: Here Strike and Robin visit the Knight's old cottage and the associated dell. What I enjoy about this chapter is how Robin's farm girl upbringing comes through, with her knowledge about how to maneuver through thorns and nettles, to her making Strike a walking stick from a branch, to her ease in sliding down the bank to explore the dell and even her knowledge that dock leaves can be used to soothe nettle stings. Strike, despite his military training, is clearly not as comfortable in the outdoor environment as she is. 

Chapter 44:  I love this chapter, especially since I got to eat at the White Horse pub when I visited Uffington. The text description is spot on:

The country inn they reached five minutes later was the very image of picture-postcard England, a whited timbered building with leaded bay windows, moss-covered slate on the roof and climbing red roses around the door. A beer garden with parasols completed the picture. 

Lethal White Chapter 36-42: A return to the opening of Cuckoo's Calling, and the start of a new ring?

Love is good, love can be strong

We gotta get right back to where we started from.

                                                -Maxine Nightingale

After Chiswell's body was found, "Part Two" of the book begins. John Granger noticed at LW's publication that there was no "Part One" at the start of the book. At the time, it was widely assumed that Cormoran Strike would be a 7 book series, like Harry Potter, and that the "Part Two" did not just mean the second half of Book 4, but the turning point to the entire series. However, when the news came that Strike would be a 10-book series instead, that idea seemed less likely.  Instead, I have suggested, per the double wedding band model (see here and here) that this orphan "Part Two" instead marks the beginning of a second 7-part ring. Looking carefully at the first few chapters of Part Two gives me an even stronger sense of "resetting" the story in a way that strongly echoes the first few chapters of The Cuckoo's Calling. 

• Strike's face is bruised and battered, in CC from Charlotte's scratches and hurled ashtray, in LW from his fight with Jimmy Knight. 
• Though not nearly as broke as they were in CC, the agency is in a financially precarious situation, in part because of non-payment by a client. Robin reviews the accounts in Chapter 36 and says, "They'd look a lot healthier if Chiswell had paid his bill."  
• In Chapter 3 of CC, Strike is "chasing" multiple clients for payment and facing a lot of unpaid bills. 
• Strike has just walked away from Charlotte. In CC he left her at her posh flat; in LW he left her at the posh Lancaster House. 
• Robin has witnessed Charlotte leaving a building (the Denmark Street office in CC, Lancaster House in LW, and is wondering what is going on between her and Strike.
• Within a couple of chapters, a wealthy client (John Bristow, Izzy Chiswell) will provide some financial relief in the form of a nice fat check. 
• This client is the relative of a recently deceased famous person, whose death the police are inclined to think is suicide. 
• The client is, instead, convinced it is murder and wants Strike to prove it. 

The Hallmarked Man will be the first real test for predictive power of the Double Wedding Band model, which predicts that, in addition to having connections with the other even-numbered books of the series. as Book # 5 in Ring #2, it will have thematic connections to Book #5 of Ring #1, Troubled Blood. Also, if there are Harry Potter echoes in THM, I predict we will backtrack to Book #5 of that series, Order of the Phoenix.

Are there hints from pre-publication publicity that this will be the case?  Find out after the jump. Spoilers for Twitter Headers and THM cover blurb ahead. 

"Why on Vulcan should that mean it is not real?" A look at mental realities in Harry Potter and Star Trek

 I got to appear on one of my favorite podcasts this week:  Potterversity!  While I've been privileged to be a guest many times over the years, this time was special because I got to revisit my first real fandom:  Star Trek and see it through the lens of Harry Potter. 

Check out the episode here.

It was a follow-up to an earlier Trek-Potter discussion, found here. 

Live long and manage mischief!

Lethal White Chapters 26-35: The hospital, the Yule Ball analog and Robin's first corpse

Chapter 26, where Strike keeps vigil by Jack's hospital bed, is a fan favorite. From Strike's "It's Uncle Cormoran, by the way" to his relief and joy at seeing Robin to the tears he sheds holding her hand to the accidental lip-kiss in the parking lot, there is a lot to love here. 

However, what jumped out at me this time was that Strike, who had groused about his co-workers' family obligations back in Chapter 22, is now ignoring "a dozen missed calls from Robin" and texting Lucy instead, even though he surely knows that Robin would not call repeatedly unless it was something urgent. This time, he is the one who has to put aside his work responsibilities and attend to family matters. And Robin ditches her own "family" event (the Flobberworm's stupid cricket match!) to attend with him. 

They cling to their dead a long time at Rosmersholm.

If you've ever listened to my guest appearance on The Strike and Ellacott files, you'll know this is the epigraph I selected as my favorite. Not only does it convey a central theme from Rosmersholm, it relates to Chapter 27 in multiple ways. The row Robin and Matthew have following her decision to skip his cricket match to support Strike at the hospital shows them clinging to a dead marriage. The Sun's conclusion that "Venetia" is the scandal involving Jasper Chiswell is them clinging to old news; assuming the minister is repeating his infidelity of years ago. But the true "Rosmersholm" counterpart is Chiswell House, and, when Izzy shows up weeping at the tea house, it leads into a bunch of Chiswell dirt beign spilled, from Izzy's resentment of her father's ingratitude and pretty much everything about her stepmother, to Raff's miserable childhood to the creepy Jack O'Kent and Chiswell's supposed insistence that O'Kent was haunting him. (This could be a lie Raff made up, to help the suicide seem more plausible). After her chat with Raff, Robin makes her last clandestine trip to Winn's office to collect the last bug. Once again, Aamir catches her, but this time a cover story about borrowing a fan gets her off. 

Lethal White: Chapters 15-25: Shall I compare thee to a summer's dog?

Chapter 15 is a brief glimpse of Venetia's second day undercover. Robin is  summoned to see Jasper Chiswell in his office, where the Minister is is usual cheerful self. He grouches that Robin hasn't planted the bug yet. Hey Jasper, if you are concerned about her getting the job done, having her walk several buildings over to you for a 30-second conversation before telling her to get back to work may not be the best idea. But, Robin gets to meet Della Winn and be mistaken for an old fencing friend of Freddie Chiswell's, who we will eventually learn is Verity Pulham.  Fun fact: Della suggests "going over the plans for the twelfth" on the ride to Greenwich. These are likely the plans for the Paralympic reception. 

Chapter 16 covers Strike's interview with Jimmy's ex, Dawn. Most of the information Strike gets about Jimmy turns out to be red herrings but she shares Strike's compassion for his brother Billy. The most important thing we learned is that Jimmy spoke of his father as a joiner, not an odd-jobs man, and had a real problem with how Jack O'Kent made his living.