The Silkworm Finale: Showdown at the Chelsea Arts Club

 

The Chelsea Arts Club apparently gets repainted on a regular basis, but its Wikipedia picture has the decor that is described in the book. Nice of Al to get Strike in and interesting that Daniel Chard tries to have them kicked out. He must not have recognized that Al was with him; I doubt he would want to risk losing out on Jonny Rokeby's biography by offending his son. 

The moment were Strike toasts Liz Tassel with his glass is also quite priceless.  That's when I guessed she was the killer on my first read. While we are clearly supposed to guess Fancourt after he is summoned to the garden, it makes little sense, especially after John Bristow, that Strike would lure a killer out to a deserted garden with him. At least this way, they'll be two men versus one 60-year old woman when she's confronted. 

The Silkworm Chapters 44-46: Polworth goes diving and the visit with Kath and Pippa

This section contains the relatively long chapter where Strike and Robin interview Kath Kent and Pippa Midgley in the former's apartment. bookended by two relatively short Polworth-centered chapters. In the first Strike asks him to undertake a mysterious and dangerous job for him, which truns out to be taking the plunge into Hell's Mouth in search of evidence. In the last, he comes through with the goods. To fully appreciate what Strike was asking, check out this video taken the following September, when a tourist managed to capture a giant rockfall into the cove. If that had happened 9 months earlier, cold would have been the least of Dave's problems.

The Silkworm: Chapters 38-40: Leonora arrested, the visit to jail and dinner at the River Cafe. Plus, the story of Holloway prison and a bonus Strike-related podcast!

Before we plunge back into the Silkworm re-read, I'd like to plug a podcast this week on which I was a guest. If you've read this essay, you know I strongly disagree with the idea that Charlotte Campbell could have been murdered.  The Three Broomsticks decided to have both Nick and me on to discuss the matter. Hopefully, I defended the suicide angle competently. 

Back to Book 2!

After a Quine-heavy three chapters, we get a bit of an interlude into the agency's other cases in Chapters 38-40. First we jin Strike in munching his Egg McMuffins and capturing evidence of Miss Brocklehurst's infidelity--his first time completing a task for the client who will eventually be known as Two-times and who will patronize the agency far more times than that, appearing in both CoE and TB. We haven't seen him in a couple of books now.  I wonder if he settled down and got married to a nice brunette, or if the agency just got successful enough that they no longer needed his business.

The Silkworm, Chapters 35-37: The misremembering bookseller, Simpsons on the Strand and Pippa, plus the cover of The Hallmarked Man!

Before I continue with the pre-The Hallmarked Man re-read of the Silkworm, I want to share a bit of important Strike news: the release of the Hallmarked cover!

This is certainly the closest look at a building we've gotten on any cover to date, and of course, the building is recognizable as the Freemasons' Hall of London, the same building pictured in an early Twitter clue. As I said when the clue was first revealed, there could be some very cool connections to other books:

But what about the Freemason building?  I suspect that will relate in some way to our heroes' major mystery. As some have pointed out, the United Grand Hall is a popular event venue, so it is possible a visit there would have nothing to do with the Freemason organization itself. But, the most interesting thing about the Freemasons to me is their association with police corruption in the 1970's, apparently as a result of some Met cops being in the same lodges with career criminals. This makes me think of gangsters like Mucky Ricci, whom the police were clearly powerless to stop and makes me wonder if the mystery will involve some dirty cops, past or present.  If so, that could certainly complicate things for Robin and Murphy.  More importantly, it could be a connection to some of themes of TB, which also involved looking back at police work in the 1970's.  That would be an interesting link between the two Book 5's of each ring.  

Fans have also been told to pay particular attention to Temple #17 in the lodge, which apparently features an elaborately carved swan as part of its decor. Swans, of course, are a favorite bird to Strike fans, from the ones tha did not swim together at Robin and Matt's doomed wedding, to the single swan on the pub near the unhappy couple's marital home, to the double swans that close out LW to the kissing swan towels at Steven Douwaite's hotel. There is also the mythological connection to Strike's mother Leda. 

The swan is also a common symbol in literary alchemy, representing the albedo, or purification stage of transformation. I was struck by the similar, albeit darker color scheme as The Running Grave, with the combination of yellow and grey. This is more evidence that we are headed for as second albedo volume, in Book 8, paired with the water-washed and baptism-filled seventh volume. That certainly fits with all the silver images seen in Twitter headers, to date.

The Silkworm: Chapters 28-29: "Her practical thoughts for his comfort"

Despite my feelings about Robin risking missing the funeral, Chapter 28 is a personal favorite of mine for a number of reasons. 

• First, it is the first time Robin (and we readers) see Strike using crutches, and the vulnerable state that leaves him in. Hearing about the inconveniences and indignities this entails (having to search for a safety pin for his pants leg, sliding down the stairs on his butt like a child) helps us appreciate how important the prothesis is for his life and his work. 
• Second, this is perhaps Robin's best opportunity to shine since she modeled the green dress at Vashti's. She shows her house-elf like efficiency, getting a practical four-wheel drive car for the journey, packing coffee and shortbread for the journey and navigating the snowy highway in a way that almost immediately appears to neutralize Strike's conditioned aversion to any non-professional drivers (especially women ones). This is before she shows off her advanced driving skills and saves them from a near-certain pileup with the jack-knifing center. 
• Third, we see Strike letting his guard down around Robin for the first time in a while---  and no eleven pints of Doom Bar to facilitate the sharing. As he puts it: "His antipathy to discussing his leg had been dissolved by warm coffee, their discussion and her practical thoughts for his comfort."

The Silkworm Chapters 18-24: More Matthew-hating and the Anstis Brats.

Chapters 18-19 give us an echo to Chapter 10: a rw between Robin and the Flobberworm, followed by Robin arriving at the office the next day, still feeling the aftereffects and finding her job far more rewarding than her home life. We will see this pattern repeat itself multiple times, as Robin grows more and more into her true self, culminating with her finally leaving Matthew in Lethal White.  

We see Matthew speaking with his habitually hypochondriac mother, and rolling his eyes at her complaints, completely unaware that perhaps for the only time, he should be taking her seriously. Being his usual hypocritical Flobberwormy self, he dare to be offended at Robin's caring more about the fact that her boss has just found a missing man murdered than the mother whose concerns he himself was dismissing; and a major fight erupts resulting in Robin, for first time (as far as we know) refusing to share a bed with him and refusing to back down, even to the extend of getting herself out of the flat the next morning, before he can renew contact with her. 

While Robin may be feeling "a familiar frustration and anger towards the men in her life... Matthew for failing to see why her job mattered to her so much; Strike, for failing to recognize her potential" we see an early indicator that Strike and the job will ultimately win:

But he had called her when he had found the body... She had managed to slip in a question----"Who else have you told?"--- and he had answered, without any sign that he knew what it would mean to her. "No one only you."

Despite Robin's early start, Strike beats her to the office in the morning, with "a suspicion that he had not confided to Anstis driving him to finish the book as a matter of urgency." Apparently Strike is already convinced there is a clue to the murder in the book. 

The Silkworm: 10-17: From "It isn't the Mango Tree, but..." to "Oh yes, turns out he would go there..."

Dear readers:  I've been derelict in my blogging for the last couple of weeks thanks to unusually high work demands and a nasty respiratory infection that knocked me out for a couple of weeks.  But I'm back and planning double-length posts until I catch up. Fortunately, The Silkworm is the shortest of the Strike volumes I plan to re-read in anticipation of The Hallmarked Man. So hopefully, I'll be back on schedule soon. 

Chapter 10 starts with Robin arriving at the office still suffering the after-effects of a massive row with the Flobberworm. Looking back on this argument in retrospect makes us think worse, if possible, of dear old Matt. First, he gets mad over Robin inviting Strike to the wedding when, as becomes clear later, his own boss Jemima will be invites. Second, he has a lot of nerve snorting when Robin brings up Sarah Shadlock and the hots she had for Matthew, given that Matthew did actually cheat with Sarah during the worst period in Robin's life. For me, the absence of Matthew is one major reason the later books are more fun to re-read than the earlier one. 

We see another great example of Robin's initiative when she shows Strike Kathryn Kent's blog, which gives them "loads" of information about Kent's affair with Owen Quine, aka, "The Famous Writer," as well as a few messages from the hot-tempered Pippa. During this read-through, I was struck by the similarities between Kath Kent and Matthew, given that they are both "pretenders" of a sort, eager to impress others, and more impressed with themselves than most other people are. Kath, with her "Literary Life" blog, presents herself as a writer of fine fiction that the rest of the world (including the professional publishers) is too ignorant to appreciate. Similarly, Matthew, at the King's Arms, speaks of his professional expertise:

Every sentence was angled, like a mirror, to show himself in the best possible light: his cleverness, his quick thinking, his besting of slower, stupider yet more senior colleagues, his patronage of the dullards working for the firm he was auditing. 

The truth is, from what we see of Kath's blog amateurishly-written blog, and the small sample of The Melina Saga we are given, Liz Tassel's assessment of her writing talent is pretty much on point. Honestly, I've seen Teen Titans fan fiction by 14-year-olds that was better. And, if we believe Tom Turpin's drunken rant in LW, Matthew is not the accountant he is cracked up to be, either. And I can't remember if his team actually wins any of the sporting events he plays in.  I know they lost the charity cricket match. 

The Silkworm: Chapters 7-9: Our first looks at Liz Tassel and Kathryn Kent

"No, or I'd've bloody well asked them, wouldn't I? You're the detective, you find him!" 

Is it just me, or is Leonora a bit rude here, considering Strike was willing to take this case on with no guarantee of payment?

I also found it interesting that Strike chose to get one of Quine's books---  and apparently one of his worst, The Brothers Balzac--- at this stage of the investigation. While he knows that Quine's disappearance is linked to the controversy surrounding his latest manuscript, there is no indication yet that that the contents of Bombyx Mori itself could be a clue, let alone the contents of a book published some twenty years earlier. This seems to be an effort to "get into the head" of the victim---  much like when Strike reviewed Lula Landry's emails in CC, and Robin sampled Margot Bamborough's favorite perfume and music in TB. Except, Strike doesn't even know he is a victim yet

Re-reads are often notable for the new insights you see in the killer interviews and all the clues that jump out at you. l was struck this time by how dark and disgusting Liz Tassel's office was. Between the puking dog, the shabby decor, the abuse of her staff---  they both are literally having to clean up after her very sick dog--and the hacking cough, it should have been clear there was something really off about this organization from the get-go. While Strike sees the pictures and the dog bed as indicating sentimentality in this Dragon Lady, in retrospect, even Old Beau is being mistreated. 

Starting off with The Silkworm, Chapters 1-6: Will Dominic Culpepper return in The Hallmarked Man?

Welcome to part 2 of my even-numbered re-read of the Cormoran Strike series, where I will be looking at Book 2 of the series, The Silkworm.  There are a number of reasons to expect echoes of this book in The Hallmarked Man.  The Silkworm takes place over just a two months in winter 2010, from early November until just before Christmas, when the UK was experiencing record-breaking snows. While we don't know the exact timeline of THM yet, we have been told the storyline will include Strike's birthday (November  23rd) and the Christmas season (JKR/RG's has tweeted that Dean Martin's "Silver Bells" will be featured)-- so at least part of the book will be set during a similar time of year. For the record, there were five named winter storms during the 2016-17 season, although none seemed to have a huge impact on London, so if they disrupt our heroes' plans, it will probably be during their travels. 

The opening chapter of The Silkworm begins with a vignette that seemingly has little to do with the rest of the mystery: Strike meeting News of the World journalist Dominic Culpepper in a breakfast cafe to pass off some incriminating evidence on a wealthy British Lord. This is our first introduction to the public-schoolboy-turned tabloid reporter--- which I would think an odd career choice for an upper-class Brit, who is at least related to titled people, but maybe tabloids aren't considered as trashy there?  Culpepper will turn up again in Book 3 (where he is angered at not getting the inside scoop on the severed leg story, then later publishes Strike's want ad for a new assistant that baits the trap for Donald Laing) and in Book 4 (where he hires Mitch Patterson to dig up dirt on Jasper Chiswell, after Strike turns him down). Then, he goes silent until The Running Grave, where Fergus Robertson first name-drops him as a journalist Strike dislikes. Then, at book's end, we hear that he is a player in the Case of the Arsehole Cricketer, as the married journalist who is allegedly sleeping with the client's ex in exchange for news stories. Given the unusual number of details mentioned for an end-of-the-book case, it seems likely that this case, like that of Miss Jones, will span two books. It could be very interesting to see Strike investigate his old employer. 

A couple of interesting notes on Strike and Culpepper's conversation:

• Strike warns Culpepper that hacking phones is illegal. Barely eight months later, the News of the World will be forced out of business due to a scandal involving illegal phone-hacking. Culpepper will be one of multiple unemployed NotW journalists to get hired by The Sun. 
• Culpepper's parting jab to Strike, asking if he "f*cked" the Lord's PA to get the details of his misbehavior, is a bit rich considering that, by 2016, the married Culpepper appears to be doing just that to the ex-Mrs. Cricketer. If Strike manages to nail Culpepper for that in THM, it will be a nice reflection to The Silkworm. 

Schedule for the Pre-Hallmarked Man reread of The Silkworm.

 

The Ink Black Heart re-read is drawing to a close, and I'm gearing up for the next in the series, Book #2: The Silkworm.  Anyone who would rather listen than read should check out the series the The Strike and Ellacott Files Podcast are doing on this book right now.  They are about halfway through, with Strike and Robin taking off for Devon in the last episode. I am particularly appreciating their look at the epigraphs, as they are teaching us a lot about the plays they came from, and how they thematically connect to the book.  Fascinating stuff!

To be honest, I am looking forward to shorter posts for this much shorter book!

Here is the schedule: 

• Tues. April 8:  Ch. 1-6
• Sat. April 12: Ch. 7-9
• Tues. April 15: Ch. 10-13
• Sat. April 19: Ch. 14-17
• Tues. April 22: Ch. 18-21
• Sat. April 26: Ch. 22-24
• Tues. April 29: Ch. 25-27
• Sat. May 3: Ch. 28-29
• Tues. May 6: Ch. 30-34
• Sat, May 10: Ch. 35-37
• Tues. May 13: Ch. 38-40
• Sat. May 17: Ch. 41-43
• Tues. May 20: Ch. 44-46
• Sat. May 24: Ch. 47-50