Troubled Blood

Robert Galbraith

Sept 2020 · A Cormoran Strike Novel Book 5 · Sold by Mulholland Books

About this eBook

In the epic fifth installment in this “compulsively readable” (People) series, Galbraith’s “irresistible hero and heroine” (USA Today) take on the decades-old cold case of a missing doctor, one which may be their grisliest yet.

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. And Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention, as well as battling her own feelings about Strike.
 
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 . . .

Ratings and reviews

Oh man. I wanted to give this a chance to see what it's about before calling it transphobic and anti-Muslim garbage. I didn't buy it myself, but a friend bought it and I read their copy. Well, it really is pretty horrible that way! I'm pretty sure reading this book made me lose an IQ point for each page. Her writing has also gone downhill since Harry Potter, which makes me unhappy. I think she should have stuck to making fantasies about something other than men dressing as women killing women. Trans-exclusionary radical feminism seems to have sadly destroyed all her braincells. My friend and I both have this annotated with similar things. We're pretty tired of her at this point.

While I don't understand in what way this book is transphobic (it really isn't), it is a bit dull. Most of it feels like an unfinished thought, other places a political soapbox, and lastly, a romance novel as we progress Robin & Strike's interest in each other. I bought it hoping for another Silkworm and got a watered down dregs of a romance parading itself as a mystery.

500 to 600 pages too long!!! I appreciate description but it was way too much. Too many characters and too convoluted. Really there wasn't any action so it became very tedious reading. I understand why some of the sides stories were included but some I didn't. I like Robin and Cormoran but Troubled Blood was a real disappointment. I would never recommend this book. In my opinion there was just too much beating a dead horse. There were some side stories that just flew out the window. I get this was a cold case but Robert Galbraith did not do a good job of writing this story. I read from Broward County Library.

About the author

Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, bestselling author of the Harry Potter series and The Casual Vacancy. The four previous Strike novels, The Cuckoo's Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil and Lethal White, topped the national and international bestseller lists and the series has been adapted for television, produced by Brontë Film and Television.