Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott Timelines Updated

Several years ago, I drew up timelines of both Strike and Robin's lives, focusing on events that happened before the book series (IED explosion that took Strike's leg, Robin's rape at university) and those that happened between books (such as the hiring of various sub-contractors). These timelines were previously available on Hogwartsprofessor.com but were removed after I left that site to open the Farting Sofa Faculty Lounge. 

Note:  for the most definitive timelines within the books, I refer you to the invaluable resources on Strikefans.com. 

I have recently updated the documents to include information from The Ink Black Heart, The Running Grave, and The Hallmarked Man, including the lengthy history of the Nancarrow family revealed in the latest book. 

Inconsistencies and possible errors are highlighted in red. Examples include Ted's serving in the Falklands War (which occurred some twenty years after he left the Army), Strike's work on the Digger Mallory case (said to have happened after the IED explosion) and the exact time Leda and kids were at the Norfolk commune (Strike was either 8, 10 or 12, depending on where you read). 

The timelines are always a work in progress, and I welcome feedback, corrections and additions. In particular, I would like to hear from readers of more recent paperback editions, as continuity errors are occasionally corrected (e.g., Lucy was said to be a "newborn" when Strike was four and they were first left with Ted and Joan; that was later corrected to "2-year-old."

Robin's timeline is available here.

Strike's timeline is available here. 

I hope people find the links helpful. 

Happy New Year to All!

Commentary and FREE subscriptions to this blog may be easier at the Substack Version. 

"Fingal All the Way:" The legend behind the name of Strike's faux son.

As I mentioned on an earlier post, the funniest part of Lucy's dreadful Christmas party for me was Strike being manipulated into accepting paternity of a lad named "Fingal."

For the next hour he drank lager and made loud, empty conversation with various parents of children at Lucy’s kids’ schools. Some wanted to quiz him about his detective career, others wanted to tell him how lovely his sister was; a few, who were already drunk, seemed unable to place him from the school run, and were confused as to why anyone who didn’t take their children to the local school should be present. The exception was a sozzled, skinny woman, who was wearing a baggy dress that was probably the height of fashion, but which Strike thought looked like a postal sack: she insisted very loudly that she knew Strike "from taekwondo", and that his son, Fingal, was very talented and shouldn’t be allowed to give it up. In the end he agreed with her, and promised to preach perseverance to Fingal, upon which she hugged him and he discovered that she stank of BO.

At the time, I thought the incident was merely tongue-in-cheek foreshadowing of Strike's later fears that he will genuinely be forced to accept paternity of a child he neither knows nor wants. But, thanks to Substack reader Bob Waite, I have learned of a legend behind the name of Fingal, that relates even better to Cormoran Strike. 

"For her name, and, perhaps, for Christmas...." Robins as Christmas emblems in the UK.

The "brightest and newest" of all the charms on Robin's Christmas gift from Strike was "a silver and enamel" robin. In addition to the lyrics of "Good King Wencleslas," one of the things I had to look up, as a US citizen plowing my way through the Christmas season with Strike and Robin, was the significance of robins to Christmas, a concept that was certainly unfamiliar to me.

In the US, robins are considered harbingers of spring; when we feature our backyard avian wildlife on Christmas cards, it's usually our bright red Northern cardinal. Join me for a look at Robin's name, the bird and why it is associated with Christmas across the pond. 

The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure Postscript: Whither Boxing Day?

It's December 26th, Boxing Day in the UK and Canada and which I am increasingly convinced needs to be adopted in the US. As I learned in my study of Good King Wenceslas, it is also the Feast of Stephen. 

Troubled Blood is, to date, the only Boxing Day we've seen Strike and Robin celebrate, and it was not very festive for either. Strike was still holed up in his attic flat, recovering from the flu and. unknowingly, from ingesting poisoned chocolates. Robin is stuck in Masham with her family and, feeling miserable, she spends the day tipsy on mimosas and exchanging texts with Saul F. Morris, raising his hopes for a relationship with her and culminating in his drunkenly sending her a dick-pic. 

Part Four of The Hallmarked Man picks up with Strike tailing plug on New Year's Eve, so we don't see how our heroes spent the second day of Christmas, but we can guess, at least, that Strike had a much more pleasant day than Robin. 

Depending on how we interpret Robin's It's only four days thoughts on the night of the 22nd, and how we reconcile that with her telling the Flobberworm that they were staying until the 29th. Robin and RFM may be on the drive back to London. So, either long hours with her family in the crowded house, or in the car with the man she thinks, no, she knows she loves. Add that to the real possibility that she is still nursing the hangover from her over-indulgences of Christmas Eve, and we can assume she is not in a good place. She is undoubtedly still over-thinking the significance of Strike's gift to her and, as we know, she will keep

bumping back against the conclusion she’d reached in the bathroom of the Prince of Wales pub: that Strike, whether consciously or unconsciously, was playing some kind of game intended to weaken her ties to Murphy, lest she contemplate leaving the agency for a more settled existence.

until she convinces herself that is the truth. 

Strike is undoubtedly more optimistic, cheered by the quintuple-X reaction from Robin to the bracelet. He presumably woke up in his own flat, having escaped Lucy's as soon as decency would allow on Christmas Day. I can imagine him opening and re-reading Robin's thank you text multiple times.

His partner’s Christmas Day response to his foray into truly imaginative gift-giving had given Strike hope. She must have understood what he was implicitly telling her when she examined those silver charms, all of them freighted with memories and private jokes, mustn’t she? Didn’t opening his present in the early hours of Christmas Day indicate an unusual eagerness to know what he’d given her? The five kisses that had followed her thank you, the use of the word "love" – admittedly followed by "it" rather than "you" – could this be the behaviour of a woman trying to keep a man firmly at arm’s length?

Hopefully he got a couple of texts from Jack on maneuvers in Lucy's backyard, wearing his new camouflage make-up. 

As for other series, there is one Boxing Day of great significance in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows : the day of Harry's dip in the Frozen Pond to retrieve the Sword of Gryffindor and the occasion of Ron's reconciliation to him and the destruction of the locket horcrux. Three years ago I wrote an essay on the significance of Molly Weasley's hand-knitted sweaters to Harry. and particularly to this scene. 

Happy Boxing Day to all my readers, and thanks again for a wonderful 2025. My final gift to you is a picture of the charm Chat GPT gave me when I asked for a "fishing priest (small wooden bat)

Having trouble subscribing or commenting?  try the Substack version! Always free, always will be!

The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure, Part 7: Ch. 37-41, The Christmas Eve finale and my Christmas card to my readers.

We are at the conclusion of the read-through of the first three parts of The Hallmarked Man.  Seven parts, one for each charm on The Bracelet, which fits with all the important sevens in the books of Rowling/Galbraith.  But, there are a few chapters and a lot of holiday awkwardness to get to before we unwrap the gift. So, if you want an authentic experience, go drink half a bottle of whiskey before continuing. 

The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure, Part Six: Chapters 31-36, Jingle All the Way

Chapter 31: 

Strike doubted that MI5 would order an operative to grab Robin round the back of the neck and force a rubber gorilla on her in an attempt to make the agency back off the silver vault investigation, but the question of who was behind the assault was making Strike wonder exactly which of the hornets’ nests the agency seemed, unwittingly, to have kicked was responsible.

He is also disturbed to know that it was apparently a comment on Culpepper's article about his womanizing that outed Robin as Witness G in the Gorilla Mask rapist case. Little does he know that his problems with Culpepper articles are just beginning. 

The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure Part five: Chapters 26-30: Going off the rails?

The new Ellacott dog bears the name
of the famous tea house Robin and
Linda visited in CoE. 

Full book spoilers for The Hallmarked Man. 

Strike and Robin start off Chapter 26 reviewing the information they got from Pamela and from Larry McGee's colleagues respectively. Unfortunately, the case is making less sense as they progress, with highly illogical things happening that neither the silver heist gone wrong or the professional hit disguised as a silver heist hypotheses explain. 

“But that’s so… weird," said Robin, on the phone to Strike half an hour later, while he was walking back to the office

Upon his arrival at Denmark Street, Strike encounters two significant developments in the case. First, he finds the pigpen cipher note. Second, before he can translate it, probable MI5 agent Ralph Lawrence* turns up to warn Strike against pursuing the Niall Semple lead, solidifying Strike's suspicion that Semple was in the Special Forces. Strike refuses to be intimidated by the agent, and, given that Lawrence will not provide proof that the body is not Semple, Strike resolves to continue the investigation, and sends off another Facebook message to Semple's wife, Jade. 

The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure, Part Four: Chapters 20-25: Good King Wencestrike?

Full book spoilers for The Hallmarked Man. 

"Why have we got a fish tank?" 

So that we can have some of the most un-subtle symbolism ever written involving legumes, naturally. 

Chapter 20 gives us lots more than the tank that will eventually house Robin, Travolta (RIP), Elton and the oranda-with-a-death-wish, Cormoran. Robin and Strike meet to review the security footage from the silver shop But first, Pat reports the threatening phone call and Strike starts to investigate that, with the memories of the bombing of TIBH fresh on his mind. 

One notable part of this is Strike asking KFC whether there was a chance Plug had spotted her, immediately putting her on the defensive and causing her to insist that Plug never really could have recognized her, she's too good, and was just being extra cautious when she swapped jobs with Midge. If Strike didn't already know that was a set-up, he does now. Worse, the Kimphomaniac immediately tries to point the finger at Robin, saying she was careless in disguising herself, as if she were Robin's peer rather than subordinate. KFC not only wants to jump Strike's bones, she wants Robin's job! It would have been nice to see Strike remind Kim that it wasn't her place to critique one of the partners. 

The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure, Part 3: Chapters 15-19.

Note:  full book spoilers for The Hallmarked Man.  

Strike glanced up at the camera over the street door as he and Robin emerged into the chilly afternoon. 

Chapter 15 finds our heroes heading out to the pub lunch they didn't get on Strike's birthday, to review what they learned at the silver shop. interestingly, one of the first things Robin tells him is that she liked the orb charm. 

Some of the interesting clues that pop up in this conversation:

• The silver itself, despite being valuable, was an odd thing to steal, given it would have relatively limited appeal outside of a very small niche group. 
• Tyler Powell is described as having "overlarge ears" and ears were one of the parts removed from the body. As best I can remember, he's the only corpse candidate described as having distinctive ears. 

The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure, Part Two: Chapters 8-14.

The Hallmarked Man Advent Adventure continues.  This is a nice substitute for cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies, is it not?  I'm going to continue with quoting the first and last lines of each chapter.  Chapter 8:

The ex-wife of the cricketer Strike called "Arsehole" and Pat, "Mr. A" was driving in the direction of her flat in Chelsea. 

Strike takes advantage of the dull surveillance job to chat with Rupert Fleetwood's Aunt Anjelica, whose name is ironic give she seems to have graduated from the  Rufus Fernsby School of Loving Relations. Given that she clearly didn't want the child, and may have even suspected Rupert was not her late brother's offspring, and that Rupert apparently didn't come with a huge trust fund, you wonder why she didn't foist custody off on his Legard relations, especially since his Lord Uncle Ned seemed to want a relationship with the boy. But. if they had, Tara Clairmont would have wound up as his de facto stepmother, which would probably have messed him up worse than Auntie Dearest did. But, there is one significant clue: she has a reason to hate Dino Longcaster. We'll learn more about that, later. 

"That's all I have to say!  Good-bye!"

The line went dead.

Good riddance, madam. On to Chapter 9:

Strike Christmas Tree 2025: New additions and ornament giveaway

My office Christmas tree rivals the Ellacott family Land Rover (RIP) in age and decrepitude; it used to be in my mom's high school classroom and she retired around 2001.  I used to put it up in my faculty office to give the place a little holiday cheer during finals; one of my students called it the "Charlie Brown tree." Now that I am working from home, and have a newly remodeled office, I moved it here, set it up on top of my file cabinet and wrapped the base up in a Ravenclaw blanket. This year, I decided it would host all my Cormoran Strike ornaments, since I added substantially to my collection this year, mostly due to luck. My final count of new additions wound up at 1 made, 3 purchased, 1 gifted and 1 re-purposed. 

It's not an exclusively Strike tree (yet!) and still has an assortment of ornaments I collected during my student, faculty and ABA clinic days--- for instance, it's topped by a popsicle stick star made for me by one of my first clients-- and of course a few Harry Potter ornaments (though most of those have their own tree on the main floor) But I'm particularly looking forward to enjoying my Strike collection--- my equivalent to the charm bracelet, during this holiday season and as I walk through the Advent Adventure in my Hallmarked Man re-read. 

The Strike Advent Adventure, Part 1: Chapters 1-7

 

*Sniff*  It's the Ellacott Family
Land Rover's last Christmas!

Welcome back, Strike Advent Adventurers. I am so happy to have readers join me for a holiday re-read of the first three parts of The Hallmarked Man, finishing with the unveiling of Strike's Best Gift Ever. But there's a way to go before we get there, so let's get started.  

What struck me on this re-read was how well the tone for the rest of the book is set up in these early chapters. There was a darkness and an awkwardness, with some chapters seeming to end quite abruptly, and opening lines that set up long-term conflicts in the story.  I'm going to review the first and last lines of each chapter; if it seems helpful maybe I'll continue that pattern through the re-read.