Starting off Career of Evil: Are We Being Baited with Switch? Strike and Ellacott Read-along (Part 1 of 6).

Today I am reviewing Chapters 1-12 of Career of Evil. Chapter 1 catches us up short with the chapter from the perspective of the killer, who has already dispatched one woman, and is now stalking our Robin. The killer's perspective is shown again in Chapter 7 and 9. Note that this establishes a parallel with Prisoner of Azkaban right from the start; both Harry and Robin learn at the beginning of the book that a killer is stalking them. 

And, if that wasn't bad enough, we know that the same Matthew who hugged her and promised to support her in her career has reneged on that promise, and is complaining about her job, and her boss, at every opportunity. I really find his high-pitched imitation of her one of the most offensive things he does. We see Robin is top-notch at her job, from the way she describes the leg man, and we can see how much Strike cares for her.  This makes Matthew seem all the worse by comparison. 

Much of the next few chapters take the form of a massive information dump about Strike's past, as he recalls, or Robin investigates online, each of the three men he suspects of having sent him the leg. A few things I noticed:

• Robin casually asks Strike if Leda's favorite band wasn't the Deadbeats, and Strike equally casually tells her that "Old Jonny" was her second choice to Eric Bloom. This does not sound like a man who thinks his parentage is a secret, making her panic that she has somehow given away the fact that she knows, on her way to the American Bar in Troubled Blood, fairly hard to understand. 
• I was struck during her Waitrose visit about Robin absentmindedly picking up a package of chicken thighs, uncertain what she will do with them, as opposed to her conscious decision to go buy Strike an entire chicken in The Ink Black Heart. 
• Pretty impressive that the first suspicious character Strike is concerned about, at their meet-up outside Spearmint Rhino, turns out to actually be the killer. I wonder in Laing had the camouflage jacket on when Strike captured him, and if he ever made the connection?

Chapter Ten gives us our first detailed look at Strike's adolescence, as he wanders around Whitechapel remembering life with Whittaker.  There's another nice parallel to Troubled Blood, with the similarities with Whittaker and Anna Phipps's childhood, with both learning shocking truths about their parentage at similar ages and both going off the rails as a result.  Of course, Harry Potter learned a pretty shocking truth about his parents at 11, too. 

We also hear, for the first and only time, about Switch Levay Bloom Whittaker, who I keep expecting to turn up in the storyline at some point. Does anyone think we'll meet him in The Running Grave? More thoughts on baby SLBW can be found at my essay here. I still think there has to be some reason, with all the details that have to be cut from the TV storylines, a mention of Whittaker's child with Leda was shoe-horned in. 

We see more of Strike's friends, meeting Graham Hardacre and Shanker for the first time, before seeing Nick and Ilsa again. Have you ever wondered what event reunited them in their mid-twenties? I guess they could have bumped into each other on the street, like Margot and Paul Satchwell, but more likely they'd have met at some occasion involving their mutual friend Strike. Perhaps his medal presentation ceremony?  And finally, in Chapter 12, we see Wardle again, who seems quite refreshing after Anstis in the last book. We also see the infamous Coco make her debut. 

One thing that struck me upon re-reading is the large number of coincidences that work to the killer's advantage.  

• Kelsie has scarring on her leg that closely resembles Brittany Brockbank's.  
• Digger Malley had dragged a young Ukrainian woman off shortly before; Kelsie was staying at the apartment of a different Ukrainian. 
• Strike had worked for someone Digger knew the year before. 
• All three suspects had lost contact with their sons: Laing's had died, Brockbank's was with his estranged ex-wife, and Whittaker's grandparents were raising little Switch.  Ergo, all three could have fit with the "should have still had a son" musings of the killer in Chapter 1. 

Are such things a necessary element of the mystery genre or are there too many to be believable?

Finally, the biggest clue that Whittaker is not the killer?  While Whittaker and Strike may have loathed each other, there was no specific reason for Whittaker to want revenge on Strike. It wasn't Strike's fault Whittaker was charged with murder, and Strike's testimony did not lead to his conviction. Strike wasn't the reason Whittaker lost his child. Even a scummy character like Jeff Whittaker would have a hard time claiming that Cormoran Strike ruined his life.

I know, means over motive, and I guess Whittaker has the most intimate knowledge of the Blue Oyster Cult tattoo. Onto Chapters 13-23 Thursday, when Robin adopts a bouncing baby blue Land Rover.