Will City Walls be to Book Nine What Bridges were to The Hallmarked Man? Connecting the charm bracelet to other clues.

I'm not sure when we've had this many clues to an upcoming Strike book before the title is released.  In addition to multiple twitter hints and headers and the now traditional emojis (much thanks the Strikefans.com for compiling them!) , Galbraith dropped a jackpot shortly before Christmas in the form of a charm bracelet in which all of the charms are promised clues. Many people have talked about this bracelet with far more eloquence and creativity than I could manage, so I will direct you to:

• Nick Jeffery's excellent essay where he identifies all of the charms.
• This mind-blowing blog post by Beatrice Groves on the symbolism of charms, with particular attention to the Psalm book.
• The most recent and very interesting Strike and Ellacott Files podcast. 

What interests me more is looking for possible connections between the clues. Here's something that has jumped out at me recently:  the use of walls and fortresses. As you may recall, bridges abounded in the pre-Hallmarked build-up, and emerged as a central theme in the final story. I am wondering if we might be seeing something similar with walled cites for Book 9. 

The first hint about Book 9 appeared almost exactly a year ago, with a twitter header of York Minister and the city walls. 

I was particularly excited about this as this was the first Strike location I had been to pre-book publication, having visited that beautiful city (and its Betty's Teahouse!) in my summer 2023 trip. We were able to see the cathedral and take a walk on the city walls. There are multiple other hints that our heroes will spend some time in Robin's homeland in the next book. The Waterfront pub will be important; historically, the rivers around York also formed a protective barrier. There is a White Yorkshire Rose on the charm bracelet and a "like" came from the author to a fan that asks if Strike would visit Masham. Even the crocodile may connect; The Strike and Ellacott files pointed out, Crocodile Rock is a landmark only about 10 miles from Robin's home town.

In September, readers were shown another waterfront fortification: the Round Tower and Tower Alley of Portsmouth, built back in the 1400's to defend the port city. This location potentially could have more significance to Strike than merely being by his beloved seaside. Southwick House, located just five miles north, houses the regimental headquarters, training and museum for the Royal Military Police. 

Finally, in a very recent tweet, JKR confirmed that Ganley's Irish Bar will also be visited in Book 9, adding, "If you want to sit exactly where Strike and Robin did, find the coat of arms for Derry." @CormStrikeFan immediately visited and shared a picture of the spot. 

I immediately was curious about the coat of arms, with its very intriguing skeleton sitting, bored-looking, atop what looks like a green coffin (described in other places as a mossy rock.

Derry, as it turns out, is also a city well known for its walls. Per Wikipedia, it is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the only Irish city with fully intact walls. 

Yes, I know walled cities are far more common in the UK than in the US, but to have three be specifically referenced in pre-publication hints strikes me as unlikely to be a coincidence, especially when you consider the Trojan Horse charm on the charm bracelet.  Many fans were expecting Cupid and Psyche inspiration, among other classical allusions, even before JKR's pictorial hint. But, Psyche was not a part of the Trojan War, while Cupid only appears at the beginning, when he fires the arrow that causes Helen to fall in love with Paris. The Trojan Horse, of course, ended the war, when it was used to sneak a bunch of Greek soldiers into the city to open the city walls to the invading army, assuring Troy's defeat. 

And, if we are considering "forts" as well as walls, that might even connect to the treehouse seen in another early header. This is a lot more iffy, though. 

Why am I excited about walled cities and sneaky ways to get through them possibly being part of the Strike 9 storyline?  There are several reasons:

• The Ink Black Heart connections:  For a lot of reasons, I am expecting a lot of connections of Book 9 to The Ink Black Heart, just as I predicted The Hallmarked Man would connect to Troubled Blood.  In TIBH, Strike drew an analogy to the Battle of Nueve Chapelle, and reflected that it was necessary to "cut through the barbed wire" before trying to storm a fortified stronghold. Echoing that "getting through the barrier" vibe would be a fascinating turn. 
• The Army: I have long been hoping, and remain optimistic that we will eventually learn some more about Strike's military career, including what his medal was for, and Book 9 is an obvious place to do that. To date, we have seen most of Strike's army stories in Book 3, which I also predict will link to Book 9. 
•  In addition to one location near the Red Caps' headquarters and training grounds in Portsmouth, Catterick Garrison, the UK's largest military base, is only about 10 miles north of Masham. We know Strike has been there at least once, likely to testify in a court martial. Recall that very brief meeting with Emma Daniels in CoE, when Strike visited Hardacre in Edinburgh. She recalled meeting him in 2002, in Catterick, when he called her staff sergeant a "negligent twat." Could this tidbit come up again?
• One hypothesis for that the mystery phone call that Strike let go to voice mail is that it is  Ralph Lawrence, calling for Strike to aid the Army or MI5 in Some Important Mission, which could take him away from the agency for a while, at least until Robin can see her sweary therapist and her her head back together. Perhaps will will learn more about Strike's medal, and whether it was related to Dean Shaw. 
• The Half-Blood Prince connections:  I was delighted in The Hallmarked Man that my prediction of connections to The Order of the Phoenix was confirmed: specifically with a secret society at the heart (and title) of the book and Kim F. Cochran making a nice counterpart to Delores J. Umbridge.  One of the central storylines in HBP was Draco Malfoy's "Walls of Troy" problem, as he tried to devise a way of sneaking his Death Eater comrades into Hogwarts Castle. In the end, his "Trojan Horse" was the repaired Vanishing Cabinet, of which the Weasley twins had made him aware when they stuffed his fellow Slytherin Montague into it.  Any sort of "sneaky way to breach the wall" problem would be a nice connection here. 

 This is certainly not the only connection I've seen between the Twitter headers and the bracelet charms, but it is, right now, the most obvious. Looking forward to sifting through more clues! 

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