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 opeing lines that set up long-term conflicts in the story line.  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. 

Chapter 1:  This is a Strike-only chapter, as the book opens with him fatigued and  grieving the loss of Ted and missing Robin, and worrying that he is going to lose her to RFM. 

The windscreen wipers had been working their hardest ever since the BMW had entered the county of Kent, their soporific swish and clunk aggravating Cormoran Strike's exhaustion as he stared out through thick rain, which had turned the deserted road ahead to a gleaming jet.

The run-up to The Hallmarked Man, with all the hints dropped about silver and refined metal, made many of us interested in Galbraith's use of literary alchemy anticipate an albedo volume. Indeed, rain and water tend to be markers of the white stage; remember all the river, baptismal and shower imagery in The Running Grave? But here, we are seeing something a bit different.  This rain reminds us of the storm Strike and Lucy drove through to reach Joan's deathbed; here Strike is driving through a similar downpour as he leaves his childhood home behind after Ted's sudden death. Granger (2020) made a case that the water of Troubled Blood was dissolving rather than cleansing, making that book a nigredo volume for Strike, although I saw the book as more of a mixture of nigredo and albedo, given the number of traditional albedo symbols (moons, swans, queens, white, springs, overflowing cups) that turn up (see here for a list).  I am seeing THM as a similar kind of mixture, with both of our heroes showing major breakdowns and losing lots of what is important to them, while at the same time going through a refining process in which pain gets as much attention as purification.  This is another reason that Book 8 really echoes book 5 for me. 

The shortness of this chapter and the relatively brief mention of Ted's death, as opposed to the much longer anticipated death Joan had stuns and shocks the reader much as it must have stunned and shocked Strike. 

The chapter closes with more dark and dirty imagery:

In this unpropitious mood he proceeded along Canterbury Road through a landscape of bare trees and sodden fields. At last, windscreen wipers still swishing and clunking, he turned up a narrow, puddled track to the left, following a sign to Delamore Lodge. 

Nothing brightens up in Chapter 2, where Strike meets Decima Mullins and little Lion. 

The house to which Strike had driven wasn't what he'd been expecting. Far from being a country manor, Delamore Lodge was a small, run-down dwelling of dark stone that resembled an abandoned chapel, set in a wild garden that loked like it hadn't been touched in years. 

This chapter gives us one of the Cuckoo's Calling links that Random-Occurrence365 on Reddit told me about: the case starts off somewhat like that of John Bristow, with Strike questioning the potential client's sanity and feeling conflicted about taking the person's money, given that the police are in a position to do a much better job. But, he agrees to take on the Lula Landry case because Bristow makes an appeal to Strike's core value of justice. 

He might have struck a divine tuning fork; the word rang through the shabby office, calling forth an inaudible but plangent note in Strike’s breast. Bristow had located the pilot light Strike shielded when everything else had been blown to ashes. He stood in desperate need of money, but Bristow had given him another, better reason to jettison his scruples.

As we will see later, Strike's reasons for taking on Decima's case are not nearly so noble. In fact, I would say the major nigredo breakdown Strike suffers in this book is a moral one, after being broken down emotionally in Troubled Blood and physically in The Ink Black Heart. 

This chapter has one of the oddest and most abrupt closings of the series. 

"I need you to prove it was Rupe in that vault!" wailed Decima Mullins, her eyes as pink and swollen as a piglet's, her thief of a boyfriend's baby hidden beneath her dirty poncho. 

Then, boom, we jump to Chapter 3, in Robin's hospital room, with an opening that sets the stage for her for this entire book.  

Robin Ellacott had lied to her detective partner abut having a sore throat and fever. In fact, she was currently lying in a hospital bed on a morphine drip, determined that as few people as possible should know why she was there. 

Lying to those closest to her and hiding the truth about how her past traumas have affected her is Robin's modus operandi for the entire book, which is why it is very easy to lose patience with her---  I remember feeling like I wanted to slap some sense into both detectives on the first read. This time through, I am making more of an effort to see Robin as a trauma patient, who, while still in the early stages of recovery from the horrors of Chapman Farm, has now been re-victimized by the long-term consequences of the Gorilla Man's attack of 13 years ago. 

Unfortunately, the chapter closing does not bode well for Strike and Robin in this book. Usually, the detective partners are delighted to speak to each other..  But Robin is so determined to hide the truth that she sees Strike's call as a risk, rather than the welcome relief it should be. 

Robin's mobile rang again. She stretched out a hand, picked it up and saw Strike's number. Glancing towards the glass panel in the door, in case another medic was about to walk in, and glad of a chance to think about something other than her fallopian tubes, she decided to risk it and answered. 

Chapter 4's opening is the most optimistic so far, as Strike expresses his concern for his partner.

"Hi," said Strike,  "How's the throat? Can you talk? If not, I'll email you later."

They chat about Decima's case and agree to postpone the decision on taking it until they check with the police about the identification of the body. Unfortunately, the connections to Valentine Longcaster and Sacha Legard come up, which reminds both of them of the conversation about Charlotte at the end of TRG.  Again, Robin sets up the pattern she shows throughout the book and shuts down the conversation.

In spite of the morphine, Robin now felt a strange mixture of anticipation and panic. Strike had opened his mouth to speak again when Robin suddenly said, "Strike, I'm really sorry, I'm going to have to go." Without waiting for his response, she hung up. 

This takes us into Chapter 5,  Enter RFM. 

Robin had just seen visitors passing the glass panel in the door of her room and, sure enough, --here was her boyfriend, tall, handsome, wearing a look of extreme anxiety and holding a bunch of red roses, several magazines and a large box of Maltesers. 

So, RFM turns up, doing exactly what a boyfriend should do in these circumstances, It really is a nice, Hallmark-movie style picture. And that's part of Robin's problem; RFM, on the surface, appears to be exactly the right type of boyfriend and exactly the type of man Robin should enjoy being with. In her determination to "fall out of love" with Cormoran Strike, she has conveniently stepped into this role, and trying to convince herself this is what she wants. 

As Robin explains the circumstances behind her ectopic pregnancy and the root cause, we see a line that is pretty ironic in retrospect. "But, she'd assumed her worries about the condom had been as baseless and her suspicion that Murphy had been drinking."  Yeah, Robin, I'd say both were equally "baseless"--- equally as in "not baseless at all." Her unwillingness to cry in front of RFM is also indicative of a lack of emotional closeness---  this should not be a big deal if you are in a serious relationship for over a year. 

The problem between them becomes obvious at the chapter's close:

"I'll order takeaways and lie on the sofa and watch TV," said Robin. "I don't need anyone else--apart from you, " she added, "obviously."

Robin's addition seems like an afterthought. If she genuinely loved Murphy, she would need him after the devastating news she has just gotten. It's painfully obvious that she doesn't. 

Back to Strike for Chapter 6:  

As it was Saturday, Denmark Street was full of shoppers, when Strike arrived back there that afternoon. As he limped past the familiar guitar shops and record stores, even more tired, sore and depressed than when he'd left that morning, the opening cords of "House of the Rising Sun" issued from an open door. 

It always behooves us to look closely at songs, plays and movies that get a mention in these books.  "House of the Rising Son" has a very interesting history. It evolved from an English folk song that eventually migrated to the US, relocating the city of the titular house to New Orleans, then became the first real folk rock hit when recorded by the British band, the Animals, in 1964. 

The male version is about a gambler who regrets his life of sin and drunkenness and urges children not to follow in his footsteps. While not as big a hint as "Shut up, Rattenbury!" the song does seem to relate thematically to the primary (Rupert) as well as the secondary (Plug) cases, both of which have gambling at the heart of the mystery and adverse effects on subsequent generations. The entire reason for Decima's connecting Rupert's disappearance to the silver vault is the silver neff that was originally in the Legard family and that Dino Longcaster won (or more accurately, stole, given that he cheated) in a drunken bet on a backgammon game with Peter Fleetwood, Rupert's supposed father. Dino Longcaster's name is fitting, given that his terrible (Dino, as in dinosaur = "terrible lizard") sins cast a long shadow over the next generation. Not only did he cheat Fleetwood senior, he cheated with Veronica Fleetwood (nee Legard), resulting in his own daughter conceiving a baby from an incestuous union.  And of course, the financial motivation for the dog-fighting ring is also money to be made from gambling on the outcome of this cruel blood sport, and Plug Jr. will also pay a price for his father's actions. 

But, going back further to the original song, we find that it was traditionally narrated by a woman, and the regretted lifestyle is not gambling, but prostitution. Apparently "House of the Rising Sun" can mean a house of ill repute as well as a pub. This connects us to the ultra-exploitive sex industry, pointing us both to Ian Griffith's sex trafficking ring as well as Lord Branfoot's voyeurism. Recall that his porn star accomplices always gave the victims "cab fare" money and caught the exchange on camera, making sure that if they tried to go to the authorities, their claims would be dismissed as voluntary prostitution. 

The rest of this chapter is probably my favorite of this first septology. First, we get a little catch-up on the case, as Strike peruses the internet for information on Decima, Valentine, Sacha and Rupert. Then, Kim F. Cochran shows up with an update on Plug, and we get to see him rebuff her initial efforts at flirtation. Then, as he did after the christening in TRG, he makes himself a reasonably healthy protein-and-veggie (no chips) dinner, but this time, instead of "thinking about not thinking about Robin Ellacott" he is unapologetically thinking about Robin Ellacott, mentally reviewing the promising (e.g. the hug on the stairs) and not-so-promising (the Ritz) moments in their history.  We get the "When a man is forced to recognize..." narrative that Robin will echo later. 

Thoughts of Robin turn to thoughts of Ted, and the advice his uncle would have given him, which interestingly, leads into aspects of Strike's family history that we have not heard before. We learn, for instance, that Leda was originally called Peggy, which is probably a nickname for Margaret, just as Ted was a nickname not for Theodore, but for Edward, which means "wealthy guardian." Though Ted did not have the material wealth of Strike's biological father, he clearly abounded as an example Strike could emulate and the source of Strike's morality. We learn that Ted broke the cycle of abuse and drunkenness that ran in his family--- this is one of my favorite connections to Order of the Phoenix and Sirus Black's rebellion against his bigoted and materialistic family. Joan patiently corresponded with him for seven years before they married, while Ted was in the army.  We see that Strike got his curly hair from his cruel Cornish grandfather, but, thanks to Ted, nothing else. 

We also get some insight into Leda, beyond the name change. Turns out, she lost her mother at age two and was raised by a "mean spirited" grandmother, which explains why she was so eager for, as Joan said, for a "name change and a new dress" that she ran off at age 18 with the first Mr. Strike for a two-week marriage. Like Margot in TB, Leda's original "Margaret" ("pearl" name) is an albedo indicator in a book that includes plenty of nigredo elements. The fact that she re-christened herself "Leda"---  a name associated with a white swan--- makes her a double albedo character, and suggests that part of Strike's ultimate purification will involve solving her murder--- and that will likely have to happen before he can unite with his "red bird."

For a look at the "Stitches" song that Robin hears blasting from upstairs, see here. 

I promised myself I would be looking for connections to other Harry Potter books on this re-read. Strike's internal dialogue with Ted includes the advice "play to your strengths;" an echo to the advice Harry Potter received from Barty Crouch Jr. (fake Moody) in Goblet of Fire. Strike closes the chapter vowing to stop brooding and take some decisive action to win Robin from RFM. The symbolism of the fishing priest becomes clear here. 

It seemed to Strike that the wraith of Edward Nancarrow nodded approvingly at this conclusion, so having finished the washing-up, he replaced the photographs and two hats in the shoebox and then, after a seconds deliberation, placed the old fisherman's priest on the windowsill, the only ornament, if it could be so-called, he'd ever put on display. 

When I first saw this, I was convinced this fisherman's weapon was symbolic foreshadowing and that, by book's end, Cormoran "sea giant" Strike would symbolically have beaten off ("struck") Ryan "little king" F. Murphy "sea warrior" and won Robin's heart. Obviously, that did not happen. Unfortunately, I think Strike, despite his best intentions, did not actually play to his strengths in trying to engineer a perfect opportunity to "declare himself" to Robin while at the same time refusing to be truthful with her about his difficulties, particularly the potential paternity case. At heart, what Robin is attracted to is not Strike the fighter (I can't imagine her enjoying a boxing match) but Strike the justice-seeker; he needs to revert to the "corn-measurer" aspect of his surname. 

Chapter 7 takes us back to Robin:

Robin was discharged from the hospital on Sunday morning, with advice to take paracetamol and ibuprofen as needed, refrain from strenuous exercise and resume regular activities only after a further three days' rest. 

We get the first indicators that her trauma symptoms are getting worse instead of better, when we hear about her nightmares about the Chapman farm box, her periods of panic in crowds and her sleeping with the lights on. Unfortunately, we also see the tendency she has shown before and will continue to show in this book, which is to think the worst of everyone, including Strike, in response to her own stress. Remember how "there's no 'we' right now" in CoE became "there's no 'we' anymore?" Robin thinks that she "knew what happened when she told people she was struggling mentally; they told her to stop doing her job." The Flobberworm told her that; perhaps even Linda has told her that, but she is forgetting that Strike has never told her that. Remember what he said at the breakdown on the verge in LW, after she has had a full-blown panic attack behind the wheel of the Land Rover: "There's nothing in your past that prevents you from doing this job." Suggesting more time off to address the trauma is a far cry from trying to push her out of the career she loves. If she could have confided in Strike, she might have gotten to the sweary therapist several months earlier. 

Sadly, she suffers another emotional setback when she learns of Rowntree's death. A hallmark of a nigredo volume is that the protagonists gradually lose most of what is most valuable to them; think of Harry in Order of the Phoenix when he reflects that Umbridge is taking away everything he loves about Hogwarts.  Robin has already lost a pregnancy and her fertility in this volume; now her beloved dog.  We'll see the pattern continue with the Land Rover.  

We then get to learn a bit more about the Silver Vault murder as Robin peruses the news reports. There is a little bit of Ink Black Heart feel to this, as comments from people with monikers like Floozy Soozy and SkankyDoodle and she lucks into seeing the comment about DCI Truman's masonic affiliation before it is deleted. 

Her research is interrupted by KFC, and I don't mean the chicken. We get a first look at her duplicity as she gives an account of her conversation with Strike that doesn't exactly jive with our observations---  Strike didn't ask her to cover Robin's shift, she volunteered, and Strike hardly "told her all about" Cornwall; he answered her nosy questions as reticently as he could. We also see her first Morris-like qualities, with her sucking up to Strike while undermining Robin. While I'm glad to see Barclay has Robin's back, I have to wonder where Strike was when this was going on. 

Animosity towards KFC turns Robin's thought towards Strike and we her Robin's echo of Strike's earlier musing: "When a woman has spent a period of years asking herself whether she's fallen in love with the man she considers her best friend..." which leads her to her relationship with RFM, and the first of many "thought--no, she knew that she loved him" corrections, and, again, she refuses to let herself think about the grenade Strike lobbed at the end of TRG. 

Strike called to tell her he's had no luck with his police contacts in finding out if the body in the vault had been conclusively identified and they discuss tracking down Albie Simpson-White (another albedo-sounding name) at Dino's.  

In a blink-and-you'll miss it moment, Robin asks Strike about Cornwall and he replies:

"Funeral was packed. I wish-- Sh*t, got to go. Mrs. A's on the move."

Strike hung up, leaving Robin wondering what he wished. 

She's not the only one.  I'm tempted to guess that he was going to say something like "I wish you could have met him" or even "I wish you had been there" which might have really thrown Robin for a loop. Any other speculations?  

Cut off abruptly, Robin decides to start exploring a topic she'd really rather not think about. 

After staring for  further minute at the name of the masonic lodge to which DCI Truman allegedly belonged, Robin moved her cursor back to the top of her laptop screen and, reluctantly, typed in "egg freezing."

It is a bit strange to get seven chapters into the book without the detectives officially agreeing to take their major case yet, but so far we've got the patterns that will shape the remainder of the book pretty well established.

I'll be back on Saturday with the next seven chapters. Thank you for joining the Advent Adventure. 

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