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. 

In the video, Galbraith displays three black and white photos and tells the audience something about each one and the relationship to the upcoming book. 

First picture: four hallmarks, including a lion

So hallmarks are fairly obviously important in the book--one hallmark in particular, which is the lion that you find on all British silver, and it shows that the object that is so marked is pure silver, the purest grade of silver. But the lion is echoed throughout the book, as readers will discover. It has a certain symbolism that resonates with each of the possibilities for this corpse, so the lion is an early clue and an important one. 

Not much of a spoiler here. We'd be pretty foolish mystery readers not to attend to hallmarks, given the book title. The most interesting part is that is sounds like lions are going to be the white horses or star signs of The Hallmarked Man, a motif that will reappear so often that our heroes will start to eye-roll and joke about hallucinating the bloody things. 

Apparently, lion symbolism is connected to all of the missing men. Given what we've been told about the case involving someone Strike would rather not deal with again, and possibly an event from Robin's past, it might be worth listing the previous lions encountered in the series to date:

• Matthew's scoffing that being a detective was like being a lion tamer. (CC)
• Multiple pub names:
• The Red Lion of CC, where Aunt Winifred held Rochelle's wake.
• The Red Lion of LW, where Robin had orange juice spilled on her. 
• This is almost certainly a different one than CC; it was in Mayfair, which seems too upscale for the Onifades.  Robin told us the Red Lion was a one of the most common British pub names. 
• The Red Lion and Sun, where Sherlock Bigcock and the Tartan Twelve-Inch observed a group of suspects in TIBH.
• The Golden Lion of TRG, which Strike and Robin visit after their first meeting with the Edensors. 
• Heather Smart saw The Lion King the night before her murder; Polworth also brought his family to London to see it. 
• Lion flags were seen in shops in Scotland when Strike visited Hardacre.
• Brittany Brockbank owned a cuddly lion as a child and held it during her taped police interview.
• Mucky Ricci had a distinctive lion head ring given to him by a gangster named Danny the Lion. 
• There was a seven headed lion on the Lust Thoth tarot card, and Bill Talbot drew his female demon riding a lion serpent. 
• White Lion Street was a convenient parking place near Elinor Dean's.
• The stone lion tomb in Highgate. 

Of these, Mucky Ricci probably both tops the list of people our detectives would prefer not to see again, and is also the most likely to be associated with a mutilated corpse. Running into the Riccis again would be another connector to TB, and also have the potential to work with the police corruption angle, given it is suggested that the Riccis had some cops in their pocket. 

The name Leonard has also come up three times, as the first name of witness Leonard Heaton in TRG, and as the middle names of both Paul Satchwell and Jonny Rokeby. While Strike would probably not be overjoyed to meet any of these gentleman, the Deadbeat Dad seems the most likely to turn up in THM. A lot of people assume Strike will be the "Hallmarked Man" here, as he completes his silver-stage albedo alchemical transformation, but what if the moniker wound up applying also or instead to old Jonny?

Second Picture:  Book cover of MoSS. 

A Maid of the Silver Sea.  I had no idea that this book existed. I decided I wanted Strike and Robin to go to Sark. I wanted them to go to quite a strange place, and Sark is a very unusual place. I actually loved it there. I went there for research purposes. But it was only after I decided to send them to Sark that I became aware of this novel which was so perfect, and fitted so-- I've never before in my life stumbled onto something that was so perfect for epigraphs in a book. And, because it is the story of how they mined the silver on Sark, so it was thematically perfect. And, the image of mining particularly, when you're talking about an investigation, it was just this perfect congruence. I also really enjoyed the novel on its own terms, if anyone fancies reading it. 

No huge plot line spoiler here, other than the small clarification that it will be Strike and Robin heading to Sark. I don't think many of us expected to see Midge and Barclay trekking across the Coupee, but it is nice to be sure. The detail that Galbraith discovered the book after he had decided to set part of the mystery there, and that he selected it because of the silver connection was interesting. I'm not sure the MoSS was so much about how they mined silver as about how they didn't mine silver, given the disastrous consequences for Old Tom and how they set up the conflict between Nan and her brother. Unfortunately, I think this makes it less likely that Oxenham's other Sark books, like Carette of Sark and Pearl of Pearl Island will be featured as epigraphs. 

Third picture: Freemason's Hall. 

And lastly, of course, Freemason's Hall. My fictional silver shop sells Masonic silverware and I've situated this imaginary shop to the rear of Freemason's Hall in London. It's a very, very distinctive building and well worth a visit. People are allowed to visit. You might not see everything but you'll see some very impressive architecture. So yeah, that was a lot of fun, researching both the Hall and the Freemasons. 

Not a lot new here either. I think it is interesting that she created a fictional building in a real location, similar to placing the UHC temple on Rupert Court, which is, in reality, filled with small businesses and restaurants. This statement also fits with what we've been told earlier about Galbraith getting access to parts of the Hall not normally accessible to the public. This suggests either our detectives will have an undercover Freemason in place or a break-in. If the former, will one of the male detectives try to join or will they have to recruit (or impersonate) someone already in? Or, could one of the women get in as a cleaner or something?

Less than a week to go!!