The latest book in the Strike series finds detective agency business partners Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott involved in the investigation of the death of Edie Ledwell. Edie is co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, and had earlier visited the agency to request help tracking down the true identity of the unknown ‘Anomie’, who has been trolling her incessantly online.
As with the previous five books in the series, there are two main strands to the story – the personal lives of Cormoran and Robin (the will they or won’t they aspect of character development) and the cases they are investigating. Though I do wonder (as do they individually) how either of them would find time to invest in relationships given the all-encompassing nature of their work lives.
This is a huge and complex story (over 1,000 pages) with intricate online aliases involved and it was, at times, challenging to keep all the storyline threads together while reading. I am in awe of the author for keeping them all in hand while plotting the book.
I read this as an e-book and it was difficult to follow the chat sections as they were formatted though, once I got my head around the layout, it became easier. Perhaps the print version would be easier to read?
So, did I guess the identity of Anomie? No. That’s a sign of an engrossing story with so many red herrings. I’m already looking forward to the next Strike book.
Five stars from me.
Read more about The Ink Black Heart on Goodreads.