Troubled Blood
Winner of the Crime and Thriller British Book of the Year Award 2021
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4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
***The 7th novel in the Strike series, THE RUNNING GRAVE, is coming in September 2023. Pre-order now and be the first to read it***
Winner of the Crime and Thriller British Book of the Year Award 2021
'One of crime's most engaging duos' Guardian
'Magnificent' Sunday Times
'Finely honed, superbly constructed' Daily Mail
'Terrific' Daily Express
Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough - who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974.
Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one forty years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. Plus the pair are still battling their feelings for one another, while Robin is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention.
As Strike and Robin investigate Margot's disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. And they learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly . . .
A breathtaking, labyrinthine epic, Troubled Blood is the fifth Strike and Robin novel and the most gripping and satisfying yet.
Praise for the Strike series:
'A blistering piece of crime writing'
Sunday Times
'The work of a master storyteller'
Daily Telegraph
'Unputdownable'
Daily Express
'Highly inventive storytelling'
Guardian
'Superb . . . an ingenious whodunnit'
Sunday Mirror
'Come for the twists and turns and stay for the beautifully drawn central relationship'
Independent
'Outrageously entertaining'
Financial Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Galbraith's superb fifth novel featuring London PI Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott (after 2018's Lethal White), his two leads land a cold case while dealing with major personal problems: the aunt who raised Strike is dying of cancer, and Robin is going through a painful divorce. In 1974, GP Margot Bamborough walked out of her London practice to meet a friend, and was never seen again. The case was originally assigned to Det. Insp. Bill Talbot, who believed Bamborough fell victim to a serial killer, Dennis Creed, but Talbot suffered a mental breakdown while pursuing that theory. Creed, who was arrested in 1976 after a failed abduction attempt, refused to say whether he snatched Bamborough. Almost four decades later, the doctor's daughter, who was one at the time of her mother's disappearance, persuades Strike to try to solve the mystery. As Strike and Robin follow up the slimmest leads and seek to trace any living witnesses, Galbraith (the pseudonym of J.K. Rowling) never loses sight of the tragedy at the heart of the assignment. The painstaking, prosaic investigative work keeps the reader engaged for the duration of this doorstopper. Galbraith will surely have lost some fans due to a controversy that preceded the book's publication, with critics calling the novel transphobic because Creed had dressed as a woman while committing some of his crimes. Those still in the author's camp, though, will likely consider this to be the best series entry to date.
Customer Reviews
Fantastic
Brilliant as always - dreading reaching the last of the series !!
Heartbroken
I love this series, the characters and I used to be a huge fan of the author. Having heard that she has made the villain in this novel a psychotic male killer who dresses as a woman to murder his victims- this series is now ruined for me.
Transgender people deserve respect and support- not to be quite literally vilified.
In the context of her trans phobic position in public, this is a huge imposition and I think, violation, of her readers. Yes she is free to write about what she wants, these are characters that she created. I just can’t bear to read this. Disappointed and disheartened.
Troubled blood
Couldn’t put it down. Amazing description of people and events.