THE INK BLACK HEART

Reviewed By  Nan van Dissel       November 21, 2022

 

Author  Robert Galbraith

Distributor:      Hachette Australia
ISBN:                 9780751584189
Publisher:         Hachette. Imprint Sphere.
Release Date:   September 2022  

   Website:   https://www.hachette.com.au

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The Ink Black Heart’, is the sixth in the Strike novels by JK Rowling under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith, which follows private detective Cormoran Strike and his associate Robin Ellacourt as they investigate the murder of one of the creators of a popular Youtube cartoon called ‘Ink Black Heart’.

Initially when disheveled Edie Ledwell, co-creator of the popular cartoon, who was being persecuted by a mysterious online figure, sought help from the detective agency, Robin declined the client; cyber-investigating was not part of its scope.

However, when a few days later Robin heard the shocking news that Edie had been tasered and then killed in Highgate Cemetery, the location of ‘Ink Black Heart’, Strike and Robin were drawn into the quest to identify Anomie, the perpetrator of the vicious online hate campaign. Strike and Robin’s deductive powers are stretched to the limit; they are forced to delve deeply into the foul world of the cartoon and its dedicated, aggressive fandom.

At first sight a crime novel of around 1,000 pages is quite daunting, however about half of the pages are tweets, chat logs and message boards.  With a multitude of characters both with their online and offline avatars, some readers may have difficulty remembering each one and his/her role in the narrative; there are too many suspects who end up being insignificant.   

Although this follows where the fifth in the series finished, readers will have no difficulty in filling in the gaps in the Robin and Strike relationship, which has moved very slowly through the six books in this series.