The Hallmarked Man Real-Time Re-read Wrap-up: Was it better this time through? Yes, but it's still the worst in the series, and here's why.

A recent Reddit poll ranked The Hallmarked Man last of the eight Strike books, and, if I recall correctly, it wasn't a particularly close vote. A lot of THM fans insist, it's better when you re-read, and I think that is absolutely true. Then again, that's true of all of the Strike series, and RG/JKR's other works as well. Part of the huge success of the Harry Potter series can be attributed to the details uncovered as kids and adults read them again and again. One reason I think the Strike books will never hit that level of popularity is that they are marketed squarely in the mystery category. Many adults do not read whodunnits more than once, since the thrill for them is gone once you know whodunnit. 

I've read or listened to the earlier Strike books dozens of times. I've lost track of how many times I've re-read THM, but, given that I read each section at least 2-3 times when doing a detailed blog-through like the one I have just completed, it must be six or seven by now. Did THM improve on re-reading?  Yes, absolutely. Did it, for me, lift itself out of last place? No, it didn't.  For this summary I have re-read not the book but all of my detailed blog posts, from the Advent Adventure to the Real-time Re-read, for the purposes of summarizing what changed for me and what didn't. 

The major reason the book reads so much better on the second, third or fourth time around is that it becomes easier to follow the key mystery. This highlights one of the major problems with THM: the core mystery is just too damn complicated. CoE, with three major candidates for the killer/leg sender (I won't count Digger Mallory since Strike eliminated him pretty quickly) and TB, with three missing women and possible Creed victims, worked. With five William Wright candidates (or four if you consider Jason Knowles in the Digger Mallory category) and multiple suspects/witnesses connected to each candidate, it just gets too difficult to keep track of, especially with the similarity of names (Rena Liddel/Reata Lindvall; Sophia/Sapphire) and all the unbelievable coincidences that have to be explained to keep all our candidates in play until the last chapters (no DNA tests possible, multiple connections to the name William White, dual significance for AustinH, distinguishing marks on the backs, warnings off the case from both the government and organized crime figures... etc). In short, when a whodunnit improves with re-reading, that's good. When you have to re-read to make sense  of the central mystery, that's bad. I recall on my first read when Robin says she felt like she was getting to know Tyler Powell at the end, my thought was, that's why they pay you the big bucks, love, because I keep having to check earlier chapters to remember if he was part of the Jade/Rena triangle or Chloe/Ann-Marie one. In any case, compared to how the detectives and the readers got to know other murder victims like Lula Landry, Margot Bamborough, Edie Ledwell and even "secondary" victims like Louise Tucker and Deidre Doherty, the emotional connection to Tyler just wasn't there. 

I also had a much better appreciation for the severity of Robin's PTSD this time, which made me a bit more patient with the poor relationship decisions she keeps making. After hearing from some readers of both this blog and of Reddit, it is clear the repeated traumas Robin has faced, most recently the de facto slavery and torture at Chapman farm, have resulted in complex PTSD. We see periods when she seems emotionally disconnected and very unhealthy attachment patterns with RFM. Furthermore, once you realize that trust issues are among the symptoms, her tendency to believe the worst of Strike (concluding his overtures towards her are for fear she'll leave the agency if she marries, her doubts about the Candy story, her fear that Valentine Longcaster could be right about Strike abusing Charlotte) makes a bit more sense. I still think it would have improved the narrative to experience one of her nightmares from her perspective, as we did the panic attacks in LW. 

Another thing that I enjoyed more the second time around was the look into Charlotte's family history and the involvement of her mother and pseudo-siblings in the mystery. On my first read-through, I cringed every time one of them came up, thinking, "No, she's dead, Strike made peace with her in the church, please don't dredge her up again..." I think I remembered Galbraith saying once that Charlotte's death was originally planned for Book 8, in which case it would make sense to have more of her kinfolk swarming around. What I really feared was that Strike would feel a need to "make peace" with her death yet again, just as he "freed himself from the last vestiges of his love for her" at least six times between CC and TIBH. But, he didn't, and even had the satisfaction of shooting down both Sacha and (much more deliciously) Tara when they tried to blame him for her demise. If only he had gotten to punch Valentine Longcaster. 

My best hope for Sleep Tight, Evangeline is that it is a Charlotte-free zone. No Campbells, no Rosses, no Longcasters, no Legards, and no Jensons. Strike made peace with Charlotte's one nice family member* (Amelia) in TRG and got to tell most of the rest of the clan to go to hell in THM.  He should be done. So, definitely no investigating her non-existent murder. I will allow Charlotte a few sardonic smiles in Strike's memory, a side mention that Strike provided the Midge pony video to Amelia to help her win custody of the twins, and perhaps Robin bringing up with Dr. Broccoli how Strike framing his first declaration of love for her as a belief of Charlotte's messed with Robin's head. That's it. Otherwise, Charlotte needs to be as gone from Books 9 and 10 as the Flobberworm was post-TB. An occasional glimpse of him fat and smoking in the Masham pub with puffy Sarah and their ugly colicky babies is enough. There are more than enough juicy plotlines involving Nancarrows, Whittakers, Shanker-Vincents, Rokebys or Gillespies to look forward to; no need for any more page space wasted on Flobberworms or Milady Berzerkos. 

It's always fun on the re-reads to pick up on clues you missed the first go-round, like the mysterious "thump" that Mrs. Powell denied making on her trip to the bathroom, and the deft way Griffiths stopped Robin from asking about the nonexistent grandniece who was supposed to be feeding Dilys's probably nonexistent cat. But I like even better the "intra-book" pointers that Galbraith always includes that are not explicitly clues for our detectives, but hints for the readers as to what we should be attending to. My favorite all-time example is naming Jasper Chiswell's terrier Rattenbury, then making his murder a variant of Francis Rattenbury's. In THM, we also see several; for example, 

Barclay's heretofore unknown seafood allergy points to the clue of Tyler Powell's peanut allergy, and Griffths' realization during his interview that that would have been a much easier way to kill him. My favorite was the Millwall football uniform shirt worn by one of the youths at the apartment complex where Strike discovered Todd's body. Not only is this yet another example of a lion to add to the collection in this book, it points to the importance of football fan merchandise and the Wolves weights that are a key to the mystery. 

Now, on to what disappointed me in this book. Several years ago, pre-TRG, I was asked to write an essay ranking the first six Strike books for Hogwartsprofessor.com. It was fairly close between TB and TIBH for the number one spot, but the reason I ultimately put TB, the winner in the aforementioned Reddit poll, at #2, was the number of truly jarring errors that book had.  While TIBH has its fair share--it's impossible to date the final scene where Strike makes his "Charlotte knew I was in love with you" declaration, and a book turns up in the Oak Grove bathroom that wasn't published until 2018-- they aren't the type that jump out at long-term readers the way so many in TB did**.  Unfortunately, THM has a lot of continuity errors, as well. For a book that is a veritable "clip show" of previous cases in a way that no other book in the series has been, there are a lot of mistakes about past events. Strike slept with Nina three times, not twice; both the Margot Bamborough case and Marco Ricci's age are at least ten years older than stated; and the number of other victims of Robin's Gorilla Mask attacker is inconsistent with what we've been told before. The book also reads like there was a significant re-ordering of events somewhere in the writing process, followed by an incomplete editing job. Barclay says his allergy attack was "a coupla weeks ago" when it was five days. Carmen is mentioned as being home alone with baby Dirk in Chapter 75, then Robin says he was just released from the hospital in Chapter 86, almost two weeks later.  The most egregious example is Chapters 97-98, with the events at the office (including Mrs. TT's visit) seem to need to happen both late-night on Wednesday, March 1, and earlier in the day on Friday, March 3rd, and the scene appears to be written as if both are simultaneously true. I know there are some older-than-me fans out there who are genuinely worried the series may not be finished while they are still young enough to enjoy the ending, but, personally, I would be happy to wait another six months for Sleep Tight, Evangeline, if we can get a manuscript that is better fact-checked and proofread. 

Unlike with Robin, I really didn't feel much more sympathy for Strike on the re-reads. He still seemed to be overly manipulative in a rather middle school way in trying to engineer the perfect spot to "make his declaration." I continued to be annoyed by his flip-flop from "the client doesn't get to tell us what we can and can't investigate" of LW to "we can't look for the living Fleetwood because the client doesn't want us to." It is still not clear to me why he gave up pursuing Robin after Sark; Murphy hadn't proposed, they were no longer house-hunting and there were certainly golden opportunities, like the night in the Goring. For that matter, what would have been the harm in waiting one more day and going to Sardinia with Robin after Semple's funeral? As for chugging whiskey while he's bleeding out from an ear wound?  The less said about that, the better. The only real point of improvement I saw with the re-read was maybe a way to justify taking Mrs. Two-times' case, but it is not clear that Strike ever thought of it. The charm bracelet, the meeting with Rokeby, the aftermath of the dog bite and Sark were the high points for Strike in this book; much of the rest of the time he just seemed off. 

My silverrrrrrr!!!!

I was disappointed not to see more of Midge and Pat in this book. The author tweeted that THM would be the most Pat-heavy book so far and it simply wasn't. Pat was much more active in TIBH, when she saved Strike from the bombing, and in TRG, when she took in Will and Qing. Other than setting up the all-important fish tank, and accidentally overhearing the shouted proposal, she didn't do a lot beyond her routine duties. As for Midge, in retrospect, she should have gone with the team to Ironbridge. She's a trained police officer and in great shape physically; she could defend herself just fine and it would have made sense to take a woman along, given that Strike suspected that one or more young female sexual assault victims could be being held on the premises. Robin could have excavated the Ramsey basement closet just fine by herself, or with Ramsey's help. In fact, if she had shown Ramsay the blueprints and the dead space where his silver might be, he probably would have ripped the wood paneling and bricks out with his bare hands. No need for a sledgehammer!

Finally, I was still left with the impression of a bit too much Dorcas Pengally: between the ectopic pregnancy, the paternity scare, the incest, the assaults on Robin, the alcoholic relapse, the turmoil with Martin's family,  the loss of Rowntree and the Land Rover and finally, the shouted proposal, the cheap romance opera/ soap opera trope to mystery ratio was just too high. As one reader put it, at times it feels like we were in a telenovela. 

I want to make it clear that my problem with the final chapter is not disappointment that our heroes did not get together. While I enjoy the attraction between them and firmly believe they will end up together. I am not a hard-core shipper. If the story is written well, I would be just as happy with Strike and Robin ending up as platonic friends and successful business partners; in fact, early in the series I was hoping for exactly that outcome. It may be my age; I am pushing sixty, have a daughter who is close to Robin's age and I'm going to become a grandmother in August. I don't have a book-crush on Strike; anyone who's dating a someone in my daughter's generation is way too young for me.***  Instead, I had a similar reaction to Pat at the shouted proposal in the stairs: Bad plan, get a new one ASAP.  Lines like "Easily remedied" or "I won't do to Ryan what Matthew did to me!" came across as more cheesy than moving. Whereas scenes like the breakdown on the verge, whiskey and curry night and spaghetti on Sark really tugged at the heart, much of the staircase scene was more of a cringefest.

That being said, Pat redeemed the scene at the end with her compassion for Strike, and particularly her recognition that Robin has not been happy in her relationship lately.  This is huge for her, given that Pat has so often been taken in by handsome men. She thought Robin was keen on Saul Morris, remember. I love the cliffhanger, that has us wondering about the mysterious phone call, whether Robin will make it to the Ritz and what will happen if she does and of course, if the pea treatment will work for poor Cormoranda again.  I definitely have a book crush on the fish. 

So, what's next?  In my next post, I'll look at the Cupid and Psyche story and what it could mean for interpreting past storylines and predicting future ones. Then, I'm torn between wanting to take a close look at C. S. Lewis's re-telling of Cupid and Psyche, Till We Have Faces, which I recently read, and going back for a re-read of Career of Evil. It was not one of the books I re-read in the run-up to THM, but had so many connections that I think it may be worth another look, even though it is my second least favorite of the series, after THM. 

To sum up:  The Hallmarked Man was a great book.  It just wasn't as great as the rest of the Strike series has been. As I commented on the Three Broomsticks podcast, when the protagonists find the murder mystery to complicated to be believed, and conclude, by the end, that this was one of their least favorite cases, you have to expect readers to feel the same way.  That's part of the price for creating characters with which it is so easy to empathize. 

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*I'll exclude her preschool-aged children for now. 

** Some examples from my original essay:  

1. Robin suddenly obsessing, on her way to the American Bar, that she’s somehow given away the deep dark secret of her knowledge of Strike’s parentage. Strike has heard her say Rokeby’s name on the phone and introduced her to his brother Al. She would have learned all about Leda, whose primary claim to fame was bearing Rokeby’s child, when Whittaker was one of their major murder suspects; this included a pointed discussion about the fact that Blue Oyster Cult was her favorite band and “old Jonny” was a runner-by to Eric Bloom as far as potential baby-daddy material went. Tabloid news stories, including ones where Rokeby expressed pride in Strike and implied a relationship existed, have intruded on their privacy and driven them out of the office any number of times. And, in LW, she stood, shoulder-to-shoulder with Strike and read an iPhone article that called Strike the “illegitimate son of Jonny Rokeby.” Daddy Rokeby is in the same category as the camp bed in the office; Robin knows, Strike knows she knows and appreciates her tact not mentioning it. This discretion sets the stage for their early relationship, and it is all ruined if Robin somehow deludes herself into thinking her knowledge is a secret.
2. Robin saying she had only been to two funerals in her life, and forgetting Mrs. Cunliffe’s, the most recent and the one she nearly missed because she prioritized her work with Strike over her duty as Matthew’s fiancé. This was a major moment in her doomed relationship and a turning point in her own reverse alchemical transformation into her authentic self. We'll later see how much guilt she still feels about that situation in TRG, when she brings it up during her Revelation. This omission is the Strike equivalent to a Deathly Hallows Harry reflecting in Gringotts that he “had never seen a full-grown dragon before,” as if he could have forgotten his battle with the Hungarian Horntail. On top of this, there was a wholly inadequate correction attempt, that merely changed “two” to “three” but never mentioned the most important funeral and still listing Rochelle Onifade's as "the only other" funeral she had ever attended beyond her grandfather's.  Contrast that to the multi-chapter efforts made for Mia Thompson, the correction for a much less significant mistake, and you get a compounded head-scratcher.

Add these biggies to the minor gaffes–Lucy and Strike suddenly having a four, rather than two-year age difference, Dave Polworth’s mom being both alive and dead, the chocolates that arrived days before Margot’s disappearance being discussed at a staff barbecue several months earlier– and you get a manuscript that needed a lot more editing, if not for length, then for basic fact checks.

*** If I were setting my cap for a character from the series, it would be the Widower Sir Colin Edensor. Now there's a catch....