The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike, #8)

by Robert Galbraith

Oh often have I washed and dressed And what’s to show for all my pain? Let me lie abed and rest: Ten thousand times I’ve done my best And all’s to do again. A. E. Housman XI, Last Poems

‘Don’t see many of that age still on the roads!’ ‘No,’ Robin agreed. ‘It’s on its last legs.’

funnily enough, reminded me of someone

She couldn’t tell the people who were supposed to love her the truth, because they didn’t want the truth, they wanted her to be the person whose lies weren’t lies.

A mixture of pride, stubbornness and some sad residue of his determination to spend as much time with Robin as possible forced him onwards. Murphy, he thought, while his knee screamed for mercy, would doubtless be gambolling up the hill like a fucking gazelle.

as much as for me!’ Strike, who had the horrible feeling she was right, watched an oncoming double decker speeding towards him and, for a fraction of a second, imagined stepping out in front of it, and erasing himself and every problem along with him, of being lost in black nothingness, in a state of blissful non-being, but the bus passed, and Strike limped on, and he couldn’t even muster anger

‘I know I need to make a decision about egg freezing. I know time’s not on my side.’

awful, relatable situation

‘I’ve got another bit of news,’ said Robin. ‘Hugo Whitehead’s father called me earlier.’ ‘Remind me?’ ‘His son Hugo crashed Tyler Powell’s car.’ ‘Oh yeah. What did he say?’

Even Strike lost track of everyone involved in the case. I don't blame him tbh

a quotation by Sylvia Plath. ‘I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I’m here.’

pretty!

… mark What one weak woman can achieve alone. Matthew Arnold Merope: A Tragedy

London. A running policeman had bellowed at him to get the fuck back inside, and Strike’s reason had reasserted itself in a wave of shame; he retreated into the pub, a forty-two-year-old have-a-go hero…

‘I think they’re going to love each other for ever and never be able to do anything about it.’