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. 

We are told that Decima Mullins, the client, wants Strike to investigate the disappearance of her boyfriend and "father of her newborn baby" who "suddenly and mysteriously disappeared." Although clearly not a cold case, this reminds me a lot of the case of Margot Bamborough, with a client wanting answers to the disappearance of a family member who was the parent of an infant when they disappeared and about which the police are unable to give satisfactory answers. In addition, there are apparently multiple missing men who could be the corpse found in the silver shop, which seems to echo the multiple missing women our heroes wind up searching for in TB, in part because they are trying to identify the woman in the snuff film. At the same time, there is also an inversion. In TB, the heroes were facing multiple missing women but no bodies; this time there is a body that could be one of several missing men. 

Galbraith's Twitter hints also tell us that Dean Martin's "Silver Bells' will be important to the story, suggesting Christmas will be celebrated. The only two books where we have heard Christmas music mentioned have been The Silkworm and Troubled Blood.  It looks like poor Strike could face that dilemma of what to get Robin for Christmas, yet again (hint: not flowers or chocolates, please!)  Another song that has been mentioned as appearing in the story is Fleetwood Mac's "Oh, Daddy."  While the simplest connection could be to the missing father of Decima's baby, RG has also hinted there will be a return of Jonny Rokeby, who last featured heavily in TB (but was all but absent from TIBH and TRG). Look at the opening lyrics: 

Oh Daddy, you know you make me cry,
How can you love me, I don't understand why.

That first line makes me think of the meeting of 7 YO Strike and his father, which Strike told Robin about in TB. 

Then again, reviews of the song suggest it is more about a woman's relationship to her lover.  

In the final analysis, “Oh Daddy” is about wanting to leave a relationship, but lacking the inner strength to do so. The listener is left with a sense of desperation, and the hope that the singer will somehow liberate herself from this situation.

So, maybe the song is about Robin and Murphy!

As for Order of the Phoenix, the best link I can come up with right now is Freemasonry, which is clearly important in the book; the hall was featured in the first Twitter header hint and on the cover. A secretive society at the center of the book is potentially a pretty strong link to OotP, much as medium's going into a trance and making a prophecy initiated the main story of OotP and TB. 

I've gotten a bit diverted from what was meant to be the topic of this post, Chapters 36-42 of LW. But, I assure you, I will return to this topic in the re-read of Troubled Blood that will start mid-July. 

Chapter 36:  Some notable items in this chapter: We see that the Flobberworm is detracting from Robin's mental health, berating her rather than supporting her in the aftermath of the discovery of Chiswell's body and the interrogation by the authorities. Strike, in contrast, is concerned about her wellbeing. This is wise, given that the appearance of Mitch Patterson at her doorstep apparently triggers another panic attack, as shown by Robin's "noisy and ragged breathing," her "constricted" voice and her abrupt end of the phone call with Strike. We also see more of Strike's knowledge of Catullus, which he demonstrated first in The Silkworm and an explanation for which we'll get in The Ink Black Heart. Finally, a bit of trivia. Raff's mother Ornella's last name is Serafin, which is derived from Seraphim, the highest class of angels in Judeo-Christian tradition, Raphael is, of course, named for a archangel associated with healing. Pretty ironic names for someone described as a "high-class hooker" and her murdering son. 

Chapter 37 gives us a do-over of dinner at Lucy's, but an enjoyable occasion, as opposed to Strike's birthday dinner in Book 2. Instead of Marguerite and a need to exit as soon as possible, Strike enjoys both Jack's company and the Olympics opening ceremony, and decides to stay overnight Friday night. As Strike is heading home the next morning, he is diverted by a call from Izzy, who invites him to her home. In Chapter 38, she given him both a welcome payment for his work on the blackmail case and hires him to investigate her father's death. We learn that she suspects Kinvara, while her sister Fizzy suspects Jimmy Knight. Strike is a bit firmer with her than he was with her dad, telling her she'll have to spill the beans on some of the family secrets she'd rather keep, if she wants him to take her case. 

Chapter 39 cuts briefly back to Robin, who is still having nightmares and panic attacks that she has to hide from Matthew. After Strike calls her to let her know abut Chiswell Case, the sequel, they plan to trade some of Shanker's gangster knowledge for forensic information from Vanessa's beau, Oliver. Chapter 40 is mostly the interview with Oliver the following Wednesday, but some interesting bits of Casa Cunliffe life are told in flashback.  We learn that Tom Turvey had lashed out at Matthew at dinner Saturday night for being, basically, an insufferable prick on the cricket pitch and in the office. Listening to the audiobook it is remarkable how similar is voice is to Jerry Waldegrave's. Again, it's enough to make you wonder if Tom suspects something going on with Sarah and Matthew. It also made me wonder, given that we had been told Tom helped Matthew get a better-paying job at his firm, if Matthew lost that job after Tom found out about the affair with Sarah. In any case, the conflict with Tom makes Matthew a little more bearable to Robin. 

On Wednesday, Robin has to disguise herself and scale garden walls to evade the journalist staking out her neighborhood, but she makes it to the meeting at the Corner Cafe with Strike. Oliver fills them in on the basic police information on Chiswell's death, including time, cause and the alibis of the major suspects.  Strike tells Robin he's been invited to Chiswell house on Saturday and asks her to drive him; she happily agrees. 

Chapter 41:  A nice Book 2- Book 4 echo here when Strike's Friday evening with Lorelei "curdles" in much the same way as his evening with Nina Lascelles did, when Strike takes two phone calls shortly after arrival, the first from a woman, the second from a man and chats with them while the dinner goes bad.

View from air

Strike and Robin cover quite a bit of the case on the drive to Woolstone, including the Winn's divorce, Geraint's threat-disguised-as-sympathy letter, the Chiswell's finances, and Jimmy and Flick's recent arguments. Robin's interruptions and objections to the accusations in the letter are reminiscent of her response to the tape of Becca Pirbright in TRG. Strike and Robin also hatch a plan to have Robin go undercover at the store where Flick is working to try to get information out of her.

This is the best shot I could get from the ground.

Finally, two important things happen when they pull off the road so Strike can put his prothesis back on. First, Robin sees the mis-sent texts that are the first clue Matthew is cheating with Sarah (raise your hand if you guessed that at first reading!). Second, they spy the White Horse of Uffington, which makes Billy's story of "strangled it, up by the horse" make more sense. I'd really like to know where they pulled off to see it, because when I was there I found there wasn't really a good place to see the whole chalk figure from ground level. 

Finally, Chapter 42 gives us the group interview/knock-down drag-out that is the family meeting, chez Chiswell.  There will not be so much upper-class chaos again until we meet the Phipps in TB, and there isn't even any walnut coffee cake as a distraction. There is a lot of information in this chapter, along with a lot of almost cartoonish humor in the imagery of this very self-important family putting on airs in their crumbling manor. Some of my favorite lines:

• "Wow, she's got stallions in together." "That's bad, is it?"
• "SHUT UP, RATTENBURY!" 
• "The emphasis suggested that the rest of the family might have been hiding keys from her."
• "'Mare Mourning. There you are, you see,' he said with an air of triumph. 'Foal is dead.'"
• "'Steady on, old chap, ' said Torquil, something that Robin had never thought to hear outside a book."
• "Or, he might've been afraid she was going to torch what little he had left. As you can see, that wasn't much."
• "You were going to give homeopathic tablets to a horse?"
• "I'm not upset, Izz. Very liberating, really, going back through all the sh*tty things Dad did while he was alive--"
• "In the midst of this melee, Kinvara got to her feet, tossed back her long red hair and walked towards the door, leaving Robin with the strong impression that she had lobbed the grenade into the conversation deliberately." 

The big clue that jumps out at the re-read is Kinvara speaking about dropping her Lachesis tablets, when she "gave a little gasp and turned red. She seemed to be boggling at some inner, private realization." Then Kinvara and Raff pick a fight with each other almost immediately afterwards, presumably to try to throw people off of the scent of their affair.

Coming up next time:  The White Horse Pub, Bobbi Cunliffe and Charlotte raises cane. 

Comments welcome!  Though some find it easier on the Substack version of this blog.