I must say, I love the talk Robin has with Zoe nearly as much as I love the one with Rachel (and I really hope that the two of them eventually met and were able to support each other in the aftermath of the Drek's Game scandal). I would have loved some indicator in the Coda that told us what became of Zoe, because I am genuinely worried about this young lady at the end of the evening. She's lost her boyfriend, which has to hurt despite his criminal predation. She's lost access to Drek's Game, her major source of social support. And she is living in terror of Anomie trying to kill her. Robin, as a good psychology student, should have recognized that Zoe is at risk of another suicide attempt. given her history. This had me speculating: if Robin had thought to ask someone to check on her at the Z, who would she ask? I can think of three possibilities:
- Mariam: Pro's: Zoe knows her and Mariam clearly has compassion for her, given the immediate job offer. Cons: She would probably talk Zoe into moving into North Grove immediately, and, while that might be an improvement over her current hovel, I would worry about her staying there unless Nils and Pez are locked into chastity belts, and Bram shipped off to a high security boarding school Also, how would Miriam react to the news that Tim Ashcroft, clearly a pal and a regular North Grove visitor (and volunteer in the special needs classroom!) is a pedophile?
- Ilsa: Pros: Ilsa would be very compassionate to Zoe, especially since she is just coming off a case where she assisted another vulnerable young girl that had been manipulated by online "friends." She could certainly educate Zoe on the legalities of the situation and offer assurances that Zoe can in no way be held responsible. Cons: Zoe doesn't know her and might not be too keen on opening the hotel room door to anyone, even if Jessica/Buffypaws sent them.
- Vanessa: Pros: General bad-ass and someone you'd want on your side when dealing with either predatory or generalized arsehole men. Might be able to solve the problem quickly by going and arresting the guy. Cons: Again, Zoe doesn't know her. and she might be a bit to aggressive about her plans for Tim.
Another thought I had this read-through: I wonder if Zoe's amazing talent for art could get her a job on the Ink Black Heart movie? I'd rather see her drawn into the fold than Pez.
If you want to read my head-cannon for Zoe's ultimate fate, go here.
Moving on: Meanwhile, down in the car. the disgruntled Strike. who had been "emasculated" by his injured leg and Robin forcing him to acknowledge his physical limitations, here gets a bit of vindication with the arrival of Mr. Ashcroft. It is gratifying to see that, even on crutches and sans prosthesis, Strike can still physically in-"Tim"-idate someone who desperately deserves it. This is testimony to both Strike's demeanor and Ashcroft's inherent cowardice; Tim takes flight when Strike steps towards him, just as William Baker (SW) and Saul Morris (TB) did. But Ashcroft is fleeing from a guy on crutches. This is an additional thematic link to CoE with our heroes helping to bring a bonus pedophile to justice, in addition to capturing a misogynistic serial killer.
Once they have Zoe (hopefully!) settled and safely off to the Z hotel (I wonder where Robin was planning to sleep, since she didn't know, at the time, she'd be tied up with hospital and police most of the night?), it's time to head off to the Ledwells. We get a rare glimpse at Strike interacting with little girls here and, once again, he shows us he is better with kids than he thinks he is. He responds to the Ledwell daughters' very natural questions about his amputated leg with a simple, straightforward and age-appropriate explanation, which is how most child development specialists recommend approaching such situations. I also caught another connection to The Silkworm here, with Grant Ledwell's startled response to the sight of Strike without his prosthesis, which was very similar to Daniel Chard's. In both cases, Strike responds to the awkwardness by cracking a joke.
The good-cop/bad-copping of the coffin letter clue out of the Ledwells is one of my series favorite scenes, and another echo of The Silkworm, where Strike and Robin did the same thing to Pippa Midgley, although that encounter was more spontaneous than planned. And, while Grant was not quite as vicious to Heather as Jasper was to Kinvara at the Paralympic reception, his "shut up" was a definite echo of that moment. Strike nailed Uncle Grunt in his later description:
And Grant bloody Ledwell--if he'd looked at the handwriting on the envelope and compared it to the letter, if he'd showed it to the police instead of deciding Blay just must be a money-grubber, which is the worst bit of projection I've seen in a while, Vikas Bhardwaj might still be alive.
Our heroes are on the way to the Upcotts when Flavia's panicked call speeds them up, to the extent that they arrive before the emergency services. I caught another Silkworm echo in the form of the marble torso statue that Robin pitches out of the window. It was earlier described as:
A modernist marble sculpture of a woman's torso sat squatly on a side table. Otherwise, the room was sparsely furnished and devoid of decorative objects.
A minimalist room dominated by a naked woman statue was also seen at Daniel Chard's Devon home:
The dominant feature of the under-furnished room was a life-sized white marble sculpture of an angel, perched on a rock and partially dissected to expose half of her skull, a portion of her guts and a slice of the bone in her leg. Her breast...was revealed as a mound of fat globules sitting on a circle of muscle that resembled the gills of a mushroom.
While I appreciated the symbolism of smashing Gus's objectification of women, I do wonder, if Strike's explicit request of the neighbors to call the police wasn't enough to summon them, what good does a falling 12-inch statue do?
In addition to connections to
The Silkworm, much has been written about connections of
The Ink Black Heart to
The Half-blood Prince. See
this essay by Beatrice Groves,
this one by Irvin Khaytman and this
Three Broomsticks podcast. But, this read-through, another occurred to me.
TIBH is the only one of the books, to date, where we don't get a major confrontation of the villain by one of the detectives, who explains the resolution of the mystery to both the culprit and to us readers. We have Strike confronting Bristow in
CC, Tassel in
SW, Laing in
CoE, Janice in
TB, while Robin has the honor with Raff in
LW. In
TRG, they split the duties, with Robin confronting Mazu and Strike Abigail. In
TIBH, the confrontation with Gus is a physical fight, with not a lot of time for explanations. Yes, Robin and Strike tie up some loose ends in their hospital chat, but that has a very different vibe than a hero-villain showdown.
HBP is the only one of the Harry Potter books where Harry does not get a long explanatory chat with Dumbledore at the end, what with Dumbledore being dead and all. In Books 1-5, the chat happens at Hogwarts; Harry travels to the Kings Cross Afterlife for the conversation in
DH. In a weird way, the hospital chat is more like Harry and DD's book wrap-up talks, given that the parties are on friendly terms.
One thing that marred the ending of the book for me is yet another screwed up timeline. Monday, June 15th is a very busy day for our heroes, from the office repair to the trips to Zoe's and the Ledwells to the final capture of the killer. The Coda, supposedly five days after Anomie's capture, apparently takes place on a Friday, since Robin was in the office with Barclay and Pat that morning (when Nutley called), but has a "free weekend" to go out with Murphy that night. So, June 19th. However, Strike said on Monday that the new glass would be installed "at the end of the week," yet, in the hospital he grouses that everyone has been walking by the new window for "five days" without noticing. This suggests that either the glass guy showed up early, on Monday right after Robin and Strike left for Zoe's, or it is actually 11 days later and the new window was in place for the June 22-26 work week, with Robin visiting on Friday June 26th. But would Robin really stay away that long? More importantly, how could Strike possibly wait that long for his snacks and nicotine fix, unless he was in a medically induced coma? Could some kind soul with a more recent edition paperback check that last chapter and see if anything has been corrected?
I will close by pointing out my favorite Silkworm-Ink Black Heart connection: Orlando and Flavia. One is a cognitively impaired adult, one a precocious child. Both conceal vital clues to the mystery: Orlando hides part of the original Bombyx Mori in her Cheeky Monkey; Flavia witnessed the letter swap but kept quiet, except for the anonymous Darth Vader phone calls. Both "girls" have highly unsympathetic murder victims for fathers. Both are facing potential permanent separation from their mothers: Orlando because Leonora was almost convicted of murder; Flavia because Gus nearly killed Katya, but our heroes save the day. And both send a thank-you card to the detectives at the end.
As I said at the start of this series, The Ink Black Heart, coming only a year before The Running Grave, got relatively little in-depth analysis. Given the leapfrog pattern seen so far among the Strike books, it is the book most likely to have echoes to The Hallmarked Man, so it was well worth revisiting as we await publication. I hope you have enjoyed the read-through, and I look forward to tackling The Silkworm next.
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