Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "cyber-crime"

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


An enthralling case for Strike and Robin’s detective agency.

Edie Ledwell, co-creator of cartoon internet sensation 'The Ink Black Heart', approaches the agency to track down a cyber troll who is making her life a living hell. With no experience in cyber investigation, Robin explains to Edie they're not best placed to help her.

But when Edie and her co-creator are attacked in High Gate Cemetery, resulting in Edie’s murder, Strike and Robin find themselves enlisted to track down the internet troll, who may have broken into the real world and be responsible for Edie's murder.

Navigating an investigation into the online community alongside its flesh and blood counterpart, the two detectives expose a murky online world that bleeds into the real one with devastating consequences.

'The Ink Black Heart' is the sixth novel in the 'Strike' series by J.K. Rowling, under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith; another complex, detailed and labyrinthine mystery of epic proportions that follows the two lead characters of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott as they take on their next major investigation, while the agency still juggles multiple other clients.

Engrossing and suspenseful, the novel navigates multiple plot threads and twists; Rowling once again expertly blending the classic and the contemporary through gothic imagery and dogged detective work, developing a multitude of characters which present many suspects for Strike and Robin to investigate - leading to clues and red herrings, undercover operations, extensive interview sequences and splashes of violence; this book has all you could want and more from a mystery and crime thriller to keep you turning its thousand-plus pages.

We also delve some more into Strike's troubled past, each novel revealing another layer. Strike and Robin are both superb and endearing characters, the narrative shared between them, their thoughts and feelings as crucial to the plot as the events and accumulating evidence. The relationship between the two characters drives the narrative as much as the case, their feelings for each other always threatening to rise to the surface.

The novel explores how a fandom can become fanatical and toxic, how the online world of gaming and social media can be abused, and how perceptions can be manipulated for the purposes of trolling, cyber-bullying and even terrorism, and the impact this has on people’s lives and in the real, wider world. The mysterious and villainous Anomie is superbly developed, a chilling presence throughout the novel, their identity revealed in the final pages in a shocking and action-packed climax.

I fell in love with this series from the moment I began 'The Cuckoo's Calling' and I absolutely loved ‘The Ink Black Heart’, which may be my second favourite in the series (following 'Troubled Blood'). The growing proportions of each of the novels let us entirely lose ourselves in this world and I eagerly anticipate the next in the series.



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