Book: Troubled Blood: A Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith, Sphere, Rs 899
Author: Robert Galbraith
Publisher, price: Sphere, Rs 899

Cormoran Strike’s creator, J.K. Rowling — we all know that is who Robert Galbraith really is — has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, namely her controversial public statements on gender and a lengthy essay that is markedly transphobic. It is thus no surprise that the latest instalment in the Strike series stoked a furore even before its release: Troubled Blood features a serial rapist-killer who disguises himself as a woman to lure his unsuspecting victims — all women — into his van. This is enough to stop readers who have been following Rowling’s public comments in their tracks, even though there are no transgender characters in the novel.

Troubled Blood: A Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith, Sphere, Rs 899 Amazon

That this should be the main takeaway from Troubled Blood is deeply unfortunate for a number of reasons. First, it is difficult to fathom how a writer hailed for the Harry Potter series, which offered so many young readers across the board a sense of solace and belonging, could have eschewed that inclusive vision so wholly in her public life and, now, in her fiction. Second, and, perhaps, equally important, is the stark absence of Rowling’s legendary imagination in favour of a constant, oblique insertion of her problematic political views. Even those who advocate separating the art from the artist will have to admit that it would be an exercise in futility in this case.

This is not to say that Troubled Blood is wholly devoid of engaging passages: those who manage to conquer the book’s daunting length — 927 pages — will encounter several memorable sections, including one in which an awkward Strike has a hard time trying to buy a perfume for his co-detective, Robin Ellacott. But the main mystery — in their first-ever cold case, Strike and Robin have to find out the truth behind the decades-old disappearance of a young doctor, Margot Bamborough — is not at all compelling. Apart from the latent transphobia, this, perhaps, is the greatest tragedy in the Strike universe: the reader’s rapid loss of interest in two of the most beloved characters in modern detective fiction.