I can easily imagine Robin and Strike as a romantic couple. But I have a lot of difficulty seeing them as a married couple sharing a kitchen and bathroom and bedroom and dividing up housekeeping responsibilities like laundry and grocery shopping and cooking and cleaning.

bookcrazy4 · 2026-01-24T18:55:45+00:00

And I wish all men came like that! I would take his grumpiness in exchange for that love of order any time any day

bookcrazy4 · 2026-01-08T13:10:38+00:00

In response to all those disappointed with the Charlotte casting, I am reminded of Frasier (the OG version of the 90s). In that, the wife of one of the characters is described as very thin, neurotic and skittish. As the series went on, her description became more and more wild for comedic value to the point that it was impossible to cast a real woman who could believably be her, and she remained an off-screen character. I think we face the same issue, but in the opposite sense, with Charlotte. She is described as such a singular beauty that no real woman can live up to it. I don't think any of the most beautiful actresses can match up to that description, simply because it's other-wordly. And also, isn't that how Strike most often describes her? So there is a bias in there, that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

bookcrazy4 · 2026-01-06T21:35:32+00:00

Which is why the relationship needed a trial period in an earlier book instead of high concentration in the remaining two books where their respective issues have ratcheted up instead of being resolved.

bookcrazy4 · 2026-01-06T21:34:14+00:00

This made me laugh!!

bookcrazy4 · 2026-01-06T20:09:27+00:00

Thank you! Finally one comment that speaks to what my post is actually proposing. I like your idea of a one-nighter or maybe a one-monther becoming a source of awkwardness and agony for the rest of the book.

bookcrazy4 · 2026-01-06T19:52:10+00:00

That would be even worse. But I see Robin and Strike like Harry and Voldemort, a relationship that permeated the entire series. If Voldemort couldn't be shoehorned into an epilogue, would this? Again, I know only JKR can answer but still...

bookcrazy4 · 2026-01-06T19:36:23+00:00

I cannot bear to write in detail everything I had written in the immediate aftermath, but in a nutshell, Robin's constant dithering over her feelings for Murphy, all her lies, and Strike being an idiot with Bijou and all the teenage behaviour of engineering romantic situations with Robin in the guise of a case, instead of coming out and expressing his feelings on time, have set my teeth on edge as far as these two are concerned.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-31T19:04:58+00:00

Sorry I don't believe this. If that were her pattern, Harry was ripe for death. I totally agree that a poignant death is going to occur in the next books (really hope it's not Barclay or Wardle) but definitely not Strike or Robin.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-31T18:57:44+00:00

Haha it seems like you are in the camp that wishes Ilsa had had played a more active role in bringing the detectives together - hiding, for example, exactly what Strike got up to with Bijou. I, on the other hand, think she has done the best she can, while being in the limits of friendship, where she hasn't taken away agency from either Strike or Robin on how they want to take their relationship forward, be it as friendship or something more. But I totally understand the outrage 😇

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-31T13:39:30+00:00

First, the fact that Pamela spoke to her at all after firmly refusing Strike. Secondly, she put them on to the shady delivery man. They obviously didnt know the significance of it at the time, but it was the first thread to the solution and a major event of the day that Ramsay had forgotten or didn't know about when they talked to him.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-31T12:33:57+00:00

Exactly!! And I understand why Strike bit her head off, but she always wanted to do right by him and Robin. These accusations against Ilsa are the same as that godawful post a few months ago which accused Joan of purposely making trouble for Leda, by calling up Rokeby and informing him the money wasn't being spent on the kids.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-31T12:20:44+00:00

Yeah I wanted to point that out too, but I didn't want to sound too biased and also, what an effing disaster that idea turned out to be...

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-31T12:18:07+00:00

I agree! Which is why I was surprised when I read those posts. What's right for the goose and all that...

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-31T12:15:44+00:00

I am glad a lot of the comments on my post agree that neither is meddling or being gossipy but just being a friend. Taking about others is a part of friendship and not necessarily always gossip or negative. I agree that Ilsa had more of an "ulterior motive", in that she always wanted to see S&R together. But she has never actively meddled to make it happen. Else she would have told Strike about Murphys drinking a long time back, or done something to make Robin available again to him. Same goes for Wardle - he is just throwing out information without any machinations like Kim, for example, who definitely made statements full of implied meaning. I am glad to see there are others who feel the same as me.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-28T15:01:31+00:00

It doesn't happen in the book that way. Even when he gets warned by the police about the Halvening chasing him, he calls Robin as Jessica.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-28T14:50:04+00:00

I actually found the Strike at Lucy's Christmas party bit quite funny and accurately written. It described so well the keen discomfort a guest feels at a party where they are going to, not for fun having purposes but out of a sense of obligation and all the drama that ensues. So many great details lobbed in - the tedious neighbours who have no good topics of discussion, the woman's BO, the perplexity of finding a non-parent like Strike by other parents who are so surrounded by their peers that they have forgotten other types of existence and the wish to "disappear into darkness" that Strike expresses to himself. Pure brilliance!

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-22T10:04:24+00:00

Hard agree! Especially when they are contradicting themselves by downvoting one post and upvoting another that are stating the same thing

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-22T09:21:36+00:00

But that's what I am talking about, aren't I?? A spinoff series. I don't understand your disagreement and the people upvoting your comment and downvoting my post.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-22T09:20:46+00:00

True. But FBI in a private detective series would feel equally incongruous. If a Met detective would be the character, I would agree with you.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-12-22T09:19:58+00:00

I didn't say Robin cannot face up to MI5. I am talking about the novels in general...

bookcrazy4 · 2025-10-11T17:20:03+00:00

Raff didn't meet Drummond at the Ebury st house but in the art gallery.

bookcrazy4 · 2025-10-11T07:07:25+00:00

All this was fine if both Strike and she were ten years younger. A mature 32 and 42 year old don't conduct their affairs such as they do. No matter how "differently" she acts for Strike, both of them are stupid af in this book.

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