Final Predictions for The Hallmarked Man (Spoilers for the Chapter 1 preview at the end)

I've made predictions here and there over the course of my pre-THM re-read and assorted other posts, podcasts etc.  I wanted to put this together to have my ideas in one place. I'm going to organize them by category and rationale.

 As far as spoilers go, I have read the part of chapter 1 that was released on audiobook, but nothing beyond that. Predictions that take events from that excerpt into account will be listed at the end after a graphical spoiler warning. The rest of the predictions include spoilers for the cover blurbs, Twitter headers and other pre-publicity releases from RobertGalbraith.com

The Troubled Blood Re-read Finale: Tying up loose ends and donkey balloons, Plus, possible connections to The Hallmarked Man and spoilers from the last Galbraith video.

I must say, I think the ending of Troubled Blood might be my favorite of the series. I like the fact that it doesn't end with either of the detectives in physical danger or fighting for their lives. Strike, Robin and Barclay all play an important role in solving the crime, with Robin and Sam "digging" the body out of the ottoman, while Strike confronts Janice. 

But, before we get to the real case, we get my favorite Strike scene of the entire series, the confrontation with Dennis Creed. I love this scene so much that I just submitted an abstract on it for the Harry Potter Academic Conference. I love the way Strike turns Creed's own trick of pretending to walk away against him to get the clue about Louise. Also, one fatal error that trips Creed up is that it simply did not occur to him that the Tucker and Bamborough families could be working together to secure Strike's services for this interview. It reminds me of Dumbledore's classic statement about Voldemort:

Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped. 

Farting Sofa FAQ Part 2: The author's biography, its use and misuse.

Please note:  This is a spoiler-free post, so please no spoilers in the comments. I also have not committed to reading the 12 chapters recently released in German, so this site will remain free of those spoilers for the time being. 

I am postponing my conclusion of the Troubled Blood reread because I think it is important to clarify my position on this topic before the excitement of reading The Hallmarked Man sets in. I have been asked my opinion recently about what I think of the literary analytic method known as biographical criticism, particularly as it applies to living authors like Rowling/Galbraith. As with the Double Wedding Band Model, I thought it best to respond with a public FAQ. 

FAQ 1:  Do you think it is appropriate to interpret fiction in the context of the author's biography? 

Answer:  Certainly. I have done so multiple times. This process is called biographical criticism and is nothing new or original. My experience with this approach includes

• My English term paper from my junior year in high school, where I read a couple of biographies about playwright Noel Coward, and looked at spousal relationships in his plays in light of his own family history. 
• My senior English term paper, when I compared religious poems of T.S. Eliot before and after his 1927 conversion to Anglo-catholicism. 
• I'm happy to say I got A's on both.
• Interestingly, none of the six literature classes I took in college (1 classics, 3 English, 2 Spanish) ever assigned a paper with this approach.
• I used Veronica Roth's published statements about her psychology studies and her past "obsession" with personality testing to  support my argument that the factions of her Divergent series were based on Five Factor personality theory. 
• Interviews with JK Rowling about her experiences with clinical depression and cognitive behavior therapy helped inform the depression section of my first peer-reviewed Harry Potter paper, on psychological disorders whose symptoms are depicted in the Wizarding World. 

Here are some guidelines for biographical criticism for people not familiar with it. 

My new idea for a bad guy to return in The Hallmarked Man: Mild spoilers from the latest pre-publication video (But none from the chapter preview)

Please note: This post includes cover blurb and RobertGalbraith.com video spoilers, but nothing from the Audible clip. Please observe those limitations in the comments.  I also have not committed to reading the 12 chapters recently released in German, so this site will remain free of those spoilers for the time being. 

The latest of Robert Galbraith's videos reveals a few more mild spoilers for The Hallmarked Man. Read on for a transcript and my thoughts, including which villain might make a return appearance. 

Farting Sofa FAQ Part 1: Reading, structural models and the evolution of the Double Wedding Band.

Please note:  This is a spoiler-free post, so please no spoilers in the comments. I also have not committed to reading the 12 chapters recently released in German, so this site will remain free of those spoilers for the time being. 

As we approach the publication of The Hallmarked Man, I am getting more direct questions from other Strike fans about the Double Wedding Band Model. where it came from, and how I think it might apply to the Strike series going forward.  I have chosen to respond in a public post in hopes of clarifying what I think this structural model can and cannot do. 

The Double Wedding Band model emerged from earlier models that I developed, and then discarded when it became clear they weren't working. That work, in turn, grew out of much earlier efforts that started around the publication of The Silkworm, by myself and other faculty on the Hogwarts Professor site. There, we analyzed the Strike series, almost from moment Robert Galbraith was unmasked, with many of the analytic tools that were useful in Harry Potter studies and which were pioneered by site owner John Granger. My favorites to use were literary alchemy, ring structure and the parallel series idea. Looking for and documenting parallel scenes, imagery, plot lines and characters between Strike books, and between Strike and Harry Potter books became my sub-specialty.

People curious about earlier models and how my thoughts on the structure of the Strike series have evolved over time can read my earlier posts on this blog, and my old Hogpro posts, many of which are now available on the Farting Sofa Faculty Archives.  You'll find all of the links below. However, for the benefit of those who don't want to dig through past writings, I'll try to provide a more readable summary here.  

Troubled Blood: Chapters 63-67: The plot thickens, and quickens.

 

Please note:  This is a spoiler-free post, so please no spoilers in the comments. I also have not committed to reading the 12 chapters recently released in German, so this site will remain free of those spoilers for the time being.

Chapter 63 shows our heroes continuing to work on the Bamborough case through the end of August. SB conveniently shows up willing to pay the agency to dig up dirt on Shifty, so they are able to resume that job.  It is this point at the narrative that the pace of the Bamborough mystery really picks up, with witnesses who have eluded them for a year suddenly popping out of the woodwork, with Strike locating Douthwaite the day Robin gets permission for him to interview Creed, then Gloria Conti magically finding the emails her husband had deleted and contacting them on the day of the Douthwaite. This is one of several ways TRG runs in parallel with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which the trio, after taking months to find and destroy the locket horcrux, are able to identify, find and destroy the cup, the diadem and the snake within a couple of days. 

Robin meets up with Jemma in an upscale bar, where she is able to befriend her after learning her boyfriend "Andy," who has ghosted her, is actually Saul Morris.  After lots of tea wine and sympathy, Robin finally gets the dirt on Shifty, who sexually harasses his PA, sexually assaulted her when she was drunk on a business trip, and is insider training. After the encounter, Robin gets the welcome news that Strike will be allowed to interview Dennis Creed in September. She calls him to find he has news of his own: with a stroke of luck almost equal to his chance sighting of Samhain Athorn, he deduced Douthewaite's newest surname and has located him in the beach town of Skegness. Amusingly, Robin's cracking the Shifty case, which has been preoccupying the agency for more than a year, is relegated to almost an afterthought ("Shifty? Yeah, he's insider trading, but...), as she, after insisting she doesn't want to to upstage Strike (oh yes you do, girl!) tells him about Creed. 

I think it is another subtle bit of commentary on exploitation of women that, after multiple sexual crimes, including probable rape, it is the financial crime that will likely bring Shifty down.

Troubled Blood, Chapters 57-62: The part that contains Chapter 58. Plus, a small Hallmarked Man spoiler (cover blurbs and Galbraith interviews, not the chapter preview!)

I must say, the description of the "5-star" American Bar, decorated with pennants and baseball caps, seems a bit incongruous to me, given that so many very casual sports bars in the US have that type of decor. I mean, I'm sure it is classy (and expensive) but....  pennants?

I know I have mentioned this before, but I am always bothered by Robin's statement that this was the "very first time" she'd told Strike she knew who his father was bugs me. While perhaps technically true, this absolutely should not be an issue that concerns her. Strike heard Robin say "That's very kind of Mr. Rokeby" during a talk with Peter Gillespie back in Book one, she met his brother Al Rokeby in Book 2, they had a talk about Leda, the Deadbeats and "old Jonny" in Book 3, and stood side by side reading an article on her phone that called Strike "the illegitimate son of rocker Jonny Rokeby" in Book 4. There has also been tons of annoying press coverage, and Rokeby would have been mentioned in any story about Strike. Strike's parentage is like the camp bed in CC, she knows, he knows she knows, and she knows he knows she knows. The idea that she is giving away some big secret here is absurd. 

Troubled Blood, Chapters 51-56: Three interviews, the scattering of ashes and a rescue by phone.

This section is bookended with interviews with the two oldest witnessed we see in this case:  Brian Tucker (Ch. 51)  and Betty Fuller (Ch. 56). Interestingly, Robin's behavior is at polar opposites in these two settings.  With Tucker, she is acting entirely on her own initiative, to the extent that she is worried her actions with anger Strike and even "backfire badly on the agency" --  though I find it hard to understand either. They are, of course, trying to learn as much about Dennis Creed as possible, and they know from Roy Phipps that Tucker has spent his life studying Creed. 

Another interesting note;  Brian Tucker uses the same term Robert Galbraith used in a recent video describing The Hallmarked Man, when he describes the experience of losing his daughter with "it marks you." 

With Betty Fuller, Robin starts off planning a routine and approved interview on her own, taking the type of witness for which she is normally better suited than Strike (a vulnerable older lady) and winds up going completely passive and letting Strike take the lead.  Atypically, Strike winds up being the better choice to ask questions of Mrs. Fuller than is Robin, likely because he has more understanding of the kind of rough world that Betty comes from than Robin, with her relatively sheltered, middle-class farm-girl upbringing. Leta probably knew multiple women who supported themselves the way Betty Fuller did. 

Updated Epigraph Clues for The Hallmarked Man: Spoilers for the Libby Preview

 I've had some family and work-related duties over the last couple of days, so I was a little late in my response to the most recent dollops of previews released as part of Mr. Galbraith's prepublication marketing efforts. I usually try to react to these morsels as soon as I can. I consider it a privilege to be able to share speculations with my fellow Strike enthusiasts, and the doubling-to-tripling of the daily readership of my blogs on any day I write about the most recent spoilers is all the compensation I need. New Strike books come around every two years or so; I see no reason not to savor every spoiler-filled drop.  So, without further ado, see the latest after the jump. 

Troubled Blood: Chapters 45-50. A spa town, a funeral and a nurse.

 

Good for Robin for sending flowers from the agency. And for shooting down Morris's suggestion of "Rich Bitch" for the client nickname. Just aa in the last section, where we saw Strike run the gauntlet of emotions and general sensitivity, we get to see Robin really come into her own as second-in-command of the agency, making decisions about clients, assignments and the trip to Leamington Spa on her own. She heads to the spa village and discovers the church yard where Margot was supposedly spied perusing the cemetery has no cemetery. She then has a moment in a pub when she spies someone who looks like Strike from the back, which sends her into a spiral of self-exploration (some would say self-delusion) about her feelings for her partner, and again convinces herself she feels friendship and admiration for him, nothing more. This sentiment will stay with her until she learns he is dating Madeline in TIBH. 

Notes on the Epigraph-Writer-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named: Spoilers for The Hallmarked Man preview

Robert Galbraith revealed on Twitter months ago that there are five epigraph sources for The Hallmarked Man.  Two quotations from John Oxenham's Maid of the Silver Sea have been published. Thanks to the audiobook preview, we now have a second source. . To find out more about it, and how it relates to the ther information we've been given, read on.  Spoiler warning. 

Troubled Blood Chapters 39-44: Prepare for an emotional roller coaster (and spoilers for The Hallmarked Man preview).

 This post will take us from the Dinner Party From Hell to Joan's deathbed. We'll see Strike in his most obnoxious and his most tender scenes and at his most inconsiderate and most responsible moments. While not all my pre-Hallmarked Man re-read of Troubled Blood posts will include spoilers from the preview (released on audiobook yesterday!) this one will. So, be forewarned and buckle up. 

First Hallmark Preview Released: Thoughts (and spoilers!!) on the Apple Books audio

 A five minute audio-preview of The Hallmarked Man was released today, and quickly transcribed on the Strike reddit board.  I know the fandom is mixed, with some (like me!) devouring the previews as soon as they are released and others preferring to wait until publication day to read any text. I have my thoughts on the preview below, so major spoiler warning. 

Hallmarked Hints Continue to Leak: What they might mean (possible spoilers!)

 This post refers to some recent pre-book publicity videos recently released by Robert Galbraith as well as some translations of publicity blurbs in other language editions that may or may not be accurate.  While the Galbraith videos can be considered official, everything else should be taken with a large box of salt. 

I do wonder if these videos will take the place of the typical preview, given the glitch last time that caused parts of the book to be revealed too early. 

Spoilers below for people who avoid all pre-publication information. 

Troubled Blood Chapters 34-38: The Phipps and the Athorns

Strike returns from Cornwall, glad to have visited but emotionally drained, grieving and stressed, craving only solitude as he returns to London and gets back to work. Alone in his flat on a Sunday evening, while making dinner and reviewing reports, he gets another message from Prudence, to which he responds quite reasonably, expressing interest in meeting her at some point but not in having anything to do with Rokeby. He dreams that night of having a fistfight with his father on a sailing ship and both get tossed into the sea. This is an odd bit of imagery, and as I read through this time, I wonder if this is some sort of foreshadowing of the silver neff sailing ship that was one of JKR's twitter headers for The Hallmarked Man.  Will that piece of hallmarked silver have some connection to Strike's father? Or does the dream symbolize Ted's boat, with Strike trying to stay afloat with his Nancarrow parents while fighting off his biological father's intrusion? 

Troubled Blood Chapters 28-33: Have Yourself a Lousy Little Christmas

One of the Hallmarked Man hints we have gotten from Twitter is that Dean Martin's "Silver Bells" will be significant, which, along with the hypothesized dates (late 2015 2016 to at least February 2016 2017) makes us think we will be celebrating Christmas with our favorite detectives in Book 8. I am really hoping it will be a happier holiday than we have seen before. In The Silkworm, we saw the lead-up to Christmas, including Strike buying revenge gifts for his nephews and Timothy Anstis, and even decorated a tree with Kath and Pippa. Our heroes were heading off to presumably enjoyable holidays with their families in St. Mawes and Masham at the end, but we don't see the celebration itself.  In The Ink Black Heart, Christmas itself was glossed over, with Strike going to St. Mawes but Robin volunteering to stay in London. Though we get to see how they spend New Years, we don't see any Yuletide festivities of the team in London or learn what our heroes got each other for presents. 

So far, the only time we have actually seen a Christmas Day is in Troubled Blood, and, frankly, it sucks for both of them, with Strike and Robin physically apart and both miserable for their own reasons. I was really hoping Robin would dump Ryan at the start of THM, and Christmas would see the start of them as a couple, but given the cover blurb, that seems unlikely. But, I am guessing that, as in TB, we'll see some sort of drama on the day itself. Maybe Murphy will surprise Robin with an engagement ring in her stocking?  Perhaps Ted, who will likely be residing in a London care home,  will spill some Strike, Nancarrow or Rokeby secret over a turkey dinner at Lucy's? At the very least, I hope Pat will be handing out tins of her famous fruitcake.