The Hallmarked Man, Part 10, Spoilers for everything but the epilogue.

At last, the resolution to the crime. Glad to see Midge and Robin teaming up on a mission. It's amusing to see that Midge has decided to shag the Ellen of "WishIwaswithEllen" fame; I wonder what the original Buffypaws thought of that. But doesn't Ellen live in Manchester, where Midge and Beth lived?  That's about 200 miles away. Maybe Ellen moved...

I thought it was incredibly funny to see Mr. Ramsey with his butt sticking out of the cupboard, sobbing over the discovery of his precious silver. In addition to poking fun at the upper class, this book takes good aim at people with excessive attachment to things. 

I had suspected since they started talking about secret passages and dead space that the silver never left the vault.  I had certainly guessed Chloe was Jolanda, but I had not guessed she was dead. I guess my real issue was that it was not clear to me how the Reata/Jolanda disappearance related to the silver vault. I felt like the resolution did not play quite fair, since one of the major clues, the picture of Reata dancing to the band, that "cracked the case" was not described in any detail, so there was no way of connecting either Griffiths or Wade to it. A mention of a curly-headed bass player or even a guitarist would have gone a long way. 

I think this is the first time where multiple detectives and multiple perps were involved in the big confrontation. It was an interesting connection to the Merope myth, with Merope forced to marry the murderer of her husband and son, while poor Jolanda had to act as a daughter to the man who murdered her mother. 

I found some of the descriptions a bit hard to understand. My initial impression of the hand-dug cellar was that it was pretty small.  Certainly the ceiling was less than 6 feet tall, since all the men except Griffiths were in danger of banging their head on it.  There was an amateurish concrete floor, but no description of the walls or ceiling. Yet, before the confrontation is over, there will be five men, including two that are exceptionally large (Strike and Jones) fighting each other in the dark, plus one chained - up girl. We have at least three men sprawled on the floor at one point, Strike wrestling Griffiths, Jones "rushing" Wardle, Barclay swinging ladders- there must be a decent amount of floor space for them all not be stepping on each other and careening into poor Sapphire. 

Strike's attack on Jones is also confusing me. He is clearly on the same side of the hole as Strike, since he falls forward, hitting his head on the other side. Strike sneaks up behind him.  Yet, if he was preparing to descend the ladder, he should have turned around and be facing Strike. 

It was touching to see Strike ask Barclay to physically assist Sapphire because he has a daughter. I did think, what a typically male friendship they have. They work together for five years, kid around calling each other Sherlock Bigcock and the Twelve-Inch Tartan, and Strike isn't 100% sure whether Barclay's child is a boy or girl!  

It is interesting to see Wardle and Strike butt heads over procedure and unnecessary brutality.  I wonder if that will continue going forward. Robin has occasionally been a restraining force---  remember how she stopped Strike from battering John Bristow with his prosthesis?  After the last two captures (Janice and Abigail) went forward fairly peacefully, the brutality associated with this was a bit jarring. 

Atypically, no connections to even-numbered books jumped out at me.  Any ideas? 

Connections to #5 books.

 Troubled Blood:

• Robin and Midge showing up at a building with rattling bags of tools definitely gave us vibes of Robin and Barclay at the Athorns. Maybe they should try to calm Mr. Ramsey down with some Penguin biscuits or hot chocolate. 
• The image of poor Sapphire chained up in a basement makes us imagine our heroes rescuing one of Dennis Creed's victims. 
• Griffith wound up being a very Creed-like figure, except that, instead of torturing his victims, he pimped them out. 
• He shared Creed's trait of trying to make himself look harmless, with a "hippy" persona instead of an effeminate one. 
• Chloe's body being encased in badly poured concrete is reminiscent of Margot Bamborough. 
• A cold case of a murdered mother is solved. 

Other connections:

Career of Evil:

• The capture also had some similarities to Donald Laing's, with Strike handcuffing the perp, being assisted by friends, having his ear cut and having to conceal from the authorities how he entered the house. 
• He was wounded and bleeding when delivering the final speech to the villain .

The Running Grave:  

• There were multiple people shadowing Robin, one (Wade King) who knew what he was doing and one (bearded Honda guy) who did not. 

Subscriptions and comments are often easier on the (free!) Substack version of this blog.