J K Rowling’s latest Strike book The Running Grave is probably the best she has written so far.
The length of the story was really well timed, to have a third of the book tying up the investigation is quite normal, but to have ten hours of this, which is normally the length of your average crime novel in the first place was quite interesting as a new writer to see this, something else I have learnt from Rowling.
I know, as a writer myself, I would not be able to do this yet, but eventually I hope to be able to construct something so good that you actually need something near this length, whether it would be edited down by a editor to help me construct it to something more cohesive is another question.
The various different stories within this book have been used before, a cult is quite a common theme within crime fiction and changing believe systems, but the way that the book opens with it’s numerous distinctive parts is realistic.
Most books that I have read so far have the characters enter the cult straight away, but not in this case. The way that it is investigated from both inside and outside, with Strike interviewing former members and Robin inside the cult, makes the book rounded and allows for the distinctive use of a PI investigation that a normal police procedural or psychological thriller with the protagonist telling the story from the inside would not be able to achieve.
The many different layers of this onion type story and the way that the cult works is fascinating. Normally in a Strike novel there are more cases needed in order to bulk the novel out and make a PI investigation book work. But, because of the number of layers this time it wasn’t necessary.
I really enjoyed this book and can see why other people said I would and I definitely agree with that. The epilogue alone and the little stories that tie all the characters in will have fans of the Strike universe really enjoying this one and I can’t wait to see what happens next, especially with the cliff hanger where it ended.
hawleyreviews 