The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

In the seventh book in the Cormoran Strike series, Rowling sends us into a religious cult. Strike and Robin are hired to help get a families son out of the cult where he has been for four years. Robin goes undercover at the cult while Strike follows leads on the outside. As Strike and Robin work on the cult case, they are also dealing with attempted sabotage from another agency and their own evolving relationships.

This was the first book in the series that I read without seeing the show first. It was interesting to have zero background on the story. It made me realize even more that Rowling throws so much stuff at you that it is hard to see the truth. In this book, you know who the bad guys are. It is the bad guys within the bad guys that are hard to find.

The new book came out this month. I am ready!

The Good – Another great story from Rowling. I thought the cult would be a veiled stab at modern religion or the church, but Rowling set it up in a way that really just felt culty. The book does a great job of showing us how easy it would have been for Robin to succumb to the cult. It was fascinating to watch her fight the indoctrination, even after she escapes.

Strike experiences a lot of growth in his character and there are some twists to the story that I totally did not expect. No spoilers, but what Rowling did with Strike’s personal life blew me away and was unexpected. Robin’s relationship with Ryan Murphy progresses, but she feels shades of her former husband in Murphy’s response to her relationship with Strike, foreshadowing? I read everything Rowling writes trying to imagine how she will use it in the future.

The book started a bit slow for me, or maybe was just difficult to read because cults scare me. Either way, somewhere toward the middle of it, I just couldn’t put it down. Rowling had me believing that people were going to get killed or run away or do all kinds of crazy things and I had to keep reading to know if they did them.

The Bad – The whole concept of separating the person from the material world, which includes family is so hard to read. It is sad and scary that people can brainwash others in such a way. It was difficult to read some of the punishments that happened. There are also some sexual acts described in the book and there is a question as to how consensual those acts were, which I have a hard time reading.

Since most of those items were loaded up front, I think that is why I had a hard time getting started with the book. I was very apprehensive of where it was going.

The Ugly – Anytime kids are involved, it just feels ugly. We are introduced to the cult as a group that started from another group that was busted for pedophilia. We learn that at least one recurring character was a victim to that group. Understand that this was somewhat necessary to the story, but I can still feel it was ugly. Sometimes Rowling is so dark, it is hard to read. Anyone with sensitivity to sexual abuse against children may have a hard time with this.