8 January 2026
It was only when I started the latest Cormoran Strike detective novel, 'The Hallmarked Man' by J K Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith), that I realised I had completely missed the previous book in the series, 'The Running Grave'. I don't think it mattered too much. Strike and his business partner Robin Ellacott are still spending a tedious amount of time on routine surveillance, while stumbling on an impossibly complicated murder plot and maintaining their will-they-won't-they mutual attraction. Like its predecessors, 'The Hallmarked Man' (which I've just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Robert Glenister) is ridiculously long (31 hours of audio) and desperately in need of a good editor. The main story of an unknown man murdered in a silver vault is actually five separate stories, as each of the five potential victims reveal their own elaborate narratives. The unraveling of the puzzle is engaging and entertaining but it could definitely have benefited from some pruning. And it was fun to continue my game of spotting the glaringly incorrect minor details in J K Rowling's very deliberately real-world contemporary London - this time including a character who spends all day riding a tube train round and round the Circle Line, despite the Circle Line not having run continuously in a circle since 2009.
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