Jayson’s Reviews > The Hallmarked Man > Status Update

- More specifically, "what was wrong with her" is she keeps choosing to do the job, dismissive of risks, despite being the victim of multiple traumas, and despite (or likely because of) appeals for caution from pretty much everyone she knows. She's obstinate and can't be warned off.
- Robin's got Lois Lane syndrome: She gets herself into dangerous situations to sniff out information; the difference being that there's no Superman to save her. She's doing highwire acts with no safety net!
(2) "... [Murphy would] just get angry. Why didn't you tell me?
And the answer to that was simple: because he'd tell her to stop re-traumatizing herself, to give up the job that had given her the scar and the bruises, the insomnia and the nightmares, which she didn't doubt was the advice any sane person would give her."
- What did I just say? Plus, when you put it that way, Robin insisting on continuing the job sounds insane!
- "Re-traumatizing" is exactly the right word for it. I hate to say it, but Murphy's right, or rather this speculative/potential Murphy Robin's fighting with in her head.
- Robin's explanation that the job gives her back the life she had before her rape doesn't make a lick of sense. Well, maybe in the very beginning, but that was before she started collecting violent trauma like Pokémon.
- I mean, is it the worst thing in the world to just listen to what Strike keeps saying and stop taking risks? I swear, it goes beyond just being a thrill-seeker, it's like she has some sort of death wish.
(3) "... [Robin had] been looking at an old and amateurish website devoted to supposed sightings of Reata Lindvall, following her alleged murder."
- I'm guessing either GeoCities or Angelfire. Though, I wonder if those sorts of pages even survived until 2017. I'd assumed they'd all have had the plug pulled by now, or otherwise glitched out of existence.
(4) Strike tells Robin about his meeting with Rokeby, as a tactic to get her to stop crying uncontrollably.
- Makes sense. He knows as well as anyone that the way to Robin's heart is information, especially personal Strike information.
- Hopefully Robin doesn't make too much of a habit of crying in front of Strike, I doubt he has all that many juicy secrets to deploy.
(5) "[Robin] looking (which made nothing any easier) as good as he'd ever seen her, with her strawberry blonde hair clean and loose and wearing a high-necked, form fitting dress of dusky pink, which Strike found sexy in its ostensible demureness."
- Compare this to the dresses Kim's worn: the scarlet dress with the butt cleavage and noticeable nipples, and the super-short black Christmas dress.
- Robin here is dressed conservative and demure, the opposite of lascivious Kim, and to much greater effect with Strike.
- At least to me, Robin totally projects wife or long-term girlfriend vibes, whereas Kim projects one-night stand vibes.
- Clearly less is more... well, in terms of trying hard to impress or wow; in terms of fabric, more is apparently more.
- Plus, dusty pink is a very understated and I daresay feminine color, whereas scarlet and black are very bold statement colors. Not that I claim to know anything about fashion.
(6) "Strike and Robin looked up to see Lord Oliver Branfoot, tall and podgy, with his trademark messy hair and droopy eyes, a genial smile curving his full lips.
Beside him, in a skin-tight, knee length black dress, stood Kim Cochran."
- So, Branfoot's meant to be Boris Johnson then? I mean, the description fits and the "trademark messy hair" is a dead giveaway, all the Latin-quoting too.
- What did I just say about Kim's dresses? No minidress this time, but skin-tight fits her style. It's about as conservative a dress as we've seen on Kim, which makes sense as Branfoot's a Lord and this is a 5-star hotel restaurant—presumably, Kim's wearing a bra this time. Plus, she's not out to seduce anyone... well, possibly Branfoot if she hasn't already.
- I wonder if Kim knows Branfoot's a pornographer and potential killer? You know, from her time working with Strike and Robin.
- If Branfoot is indeed a parody or inspired primarily by Boris Johnson, I wonder if it's meant to carry a specific message or veiled critique? You know, Branfoot's criminal activities aside.
(7) "Kim walked beside [Branfoot] looking neither left nor right, her heels an inch higher than Robin's, every hair on her dark head in place."
- "Her dark head" is an interesting choice of words. Makes it seem like Kim's turned to the dark side, or is deep into the dark arts, or something else evil-coded.
- Robin's note about Kim's heels being higher than hers makes it plain she's sizing Kim up, literally, in comparison to herself... someone needs to tell her that heel size doesn't matter.
- I mean, is heel size a metric women measure each other by? Why? Does it make you more of a woman, more appealing, or project more power if you're better at tip-toeing? Surely, you'd not want heels to be too high, lest you risk venturing into stripper territory.
(8) "[Robin] stood up in the knowledge she probably looked as she felt: definitely ruffled ... She reached for bread and was angry to see her fingers trembling."
- Yeah, Robin definitely would suck at poker.
- She's probably all the more frazzled as Strike's left her alone with an almost-certain criminal, not to mention a disgruntled and vindictive ex-employee—no laying down the law about who's the boss now!
- Also, being all about secrets, Robin's extra on edge about how much they know about her personal life and past.
(9) Branfoot to Robin: "Let me say I have the gweatest wespect faw what you did with wegard to that dweadful cult last year ... you've displayed weally extwaordinary bwavery."
- Okay, so looks like Boris Johnson, talks like Jonathan Ross (or, alternatively, a British Elmer Fudd)... well, at least it's an accent I'm familiar with and can understand the sound of. Unlike Pamela Bullen-Driscoll's accent, which I haven't a clue how it might actually sound like.
- Though, heavy-accent conversation chapters are always a drag, no matter how familiar: all the sounding-out slows you to a crawl.
(10) "'Told him everything have you?' Strike said to Kim, on whose face a faint pussycat smile now appeared. 'Broken your NDA?'
'Farah and I decided we ought to look into Decima Mullins after I left the agency,' said Kim. 'You never told me she had a baby she's trying to hide. I wasn't sworn to secrecy on that.'
'You total bitch,' said Robin, taking Strike by surprise. Kim smiled more widely and Branfoot laughed."
- Yeah, total supervillain vibes here with Kim—dark side indeed.
- What have I been saying about Robin and secrets? I find it entirely unsurprising, that it's spilling secrets that sets Robin off.
(11) "'Is it wrong,' said Robin quietly, 'that I really, really enjoyed that?'
'If that was wrong, I don't want to be right,' said Strike..."
- The thing Robin really, really enjoyed was how Strike slut-shamed Kim so hard, and so thoroughly, that she ran out of the restaurant in tears. Not that it wasn't entirely relevant to the matter at hand.
- Suddenly heel size doesn't matter so much, I guess.
- I was just about to make a doomed prediction that Kim would stick around in the series to be Robin's personal nemesis—not that I'd get confirmation in this book.
- Kim is in many ways Robin's complete opposite, but especially as it comes to keeping secrets. I mean, you can't brag about having affairs with married co-workers (plural)—as she did at the Dorchester to Strike—and be shocked when it comes back to bite you in the ass/arse. Not that this information led directly to her downfall, it was just some very early foreshadowing... I'd almost call it a Chekhov's Gun, or in this case Chekhov's Homewrecking Anecdotes. Actually, we saw the first instance of this when her ex-boyfriend Ray killed himself over it.
(12) Interestingly, this seems to be the first of multiple culprit checkmate scenes. Usually we only get one each book—at least I think so.
- This dinner with Branfoot and Kim ties up the Danny de Leon thread. Based on this, I assume we'll get one each for Rupert Fleetwood, Tyler Powell and Niall Semple—unless they decide to kill two or more birds with one stone.
- Also, is this the first time Robin's been involved in one of these? Hasn't it always been just Strike doing this solo? Not that Robin contributed anything beyond calling Kim a "total bitch," she just bore witness. Possibly this marks or symbolizes an evolution of their professional, if not personal, relationship.
(13) On the way to interview Charlotte's mother, Strike recalls that the day he first met Robin was the same day he broke up with Charlotte—which went so badly he was afraid she'd kill herself.
- It's an interesting parallel with Robin—and with Kim and her ex too for that matter—where potential suicide becomes a consideration and/or consequence of breaking up with someone.
- Ironically, Strike's the perfect person to understand and empathize with Robin's situation: dealing with a potentially suicidal Murphy and therefore the risks of breaking up.
- Now that Strike knows about Murphy's alcoholism, he assumes it will only cause Robin's relationship with Murphy to strengthen, since she's loyal and would want to actively support his sobriety. Little does he know that she desperately wants out—at least I think she does.
- Conveniently absent from Strike's recollection of meeting Robin for the first time is how he caught her from falling down the stairs by grabbing her left breast, which to me was the most memorable aspect of the scene—Charlotte storming out of his office was merely the impetus. I mean, it's not like anyone's reading his thoughts to judge, all things considered, I'd expect it'd be most memorable to him too.
- It might say something about Strike and Robin's relationship that literally their first interaction involves something that would in other contexts be seen as patently sexual, whereas everything romantic/sexually-charged since then has been decidedly grade-school.
(14) We get the second, of presumably three or four, culprit checkmate scenes, this time tying up the Rupert Fleetwood thread.
- Meaning that the body in the vault must be either Powell or Semple, right?
- So far, neither of the culprit checkmate scenes have been as long and comprehensive as previous books, at least from what I remember. It's probably by design, to seem less bloated and/or tedious, that they're divided up as much as they are.
- Prediction: The body in the vault was neither Powell nor Semple, but someone who's not been previously considered!