Search Results for: rokeby prostate cancer

In yesterday’s post, with the help of Nick Jeffery, I tried to calculate the amount of money as of 2014 that Jonny Rokeby, rock star, owed his illegitimate son, Cormoran Strike, in child-support payments that have been accumulating compound interest in a bank or maturing as blue-chip stocks since 1985. We came to a dollar figure well over $500,000.

Remember, Strike is living in a two room flat over the Agency office with a one ring hot-plate and college dorm room refrigerator. Half a million dollars is a life-style changing amount of money to our working boy.

We reviewed, however, the history of what Rokeby once called his son’s “nice little nest egg” and why Strike’s only relationship with it was to take out a loan on it, paid back with interest, to start the C. B. Strike Detective Agency. In brief, it is the tangible, exteriorized representative of Strike’s Oedipal outage, the desire to kill his biological father in devotion to his late mother. For reasons Rokeby certainly doesn’t grasp, Strike thinks of it as blood money and taboo.

See ‘Rokeby Owes Strike How Much?‘ for the calculations and the explanation of all that.

Which brings us to the natural question: So What? Believe it or not, I think the “nest egg” money is a nice segue to discussion of that haunting topic, ‘Who Killed Leda Strike and Why?‘ I think there are five principal suspects: Leda herself, Jonny Rokeby, Jeff Whittaker, Ted Nancarrow, and Dave Polworth. Let’s walk through the reasons each could have had to kill Leda Strike and whether knowing the “nest egg” money existed may have influenced his or her decision to do her in. [Read more…]

At last we have reached the publication date of Ink Black Heart! Whether you have been enjoying the excerpt-teases provided by the publisher or puritanically abstaining (and, no, to me at least, ‘puritan’ is not necessarily pejorative), today we all enjoy Strike6 at last. Rejoice!

If you are still waiting for your copy to arrive in the mail — Amazon had by far the lowest price for the book — I offer today a list of nine things to keep in mind as you read Ink Black Heart and a description of how HogwartsProfessor.com will discuss Rowling-Galbraith’s longest novel to date in the coming week. I’ll also throw in the three best list of predictions for you to reflect on in the few hours — minutes! — before you can dive into a reading at long last. All after the jump! [Read more…]

Earlier this month, inspired by a comment Elisa made about Cormoran and Joan’s deathbed conversation and how Strike may have misunderstood what was said, I wrote a post that asserted that, as long and as satisfying a novel as Troubled Blood is and as much attention as we have given here to exploring the artistry and meaning involved, there are as many Strike5 mysteries still left to be solved. See Have We Covered ‘Troubled Blood’? No. for that discussion.

Yesterday I listed 7+ unanswered questions about the Strike series that we neglect because we’ve been suckered into trusting our two narrators, Sherlock Strike the Amazing Memory Man and the Jungian Jungfrau Ellacott, who are no more dependable as story-tellers than Harry Potter, Rowling’s other misdirection delivery system. Read Cormoran Strike: Unanswered Questions for those subjects that our Dynamic Detecting Duo just refuse to think about despite Rowling-Galbraith dropping clues around them for stop-and-look-down discovery.

Today I want to list and discuss seven plus more unanswered questions that are specific to Troubled Blood. Dave Polworth, Lucy Fantoni, Charlotte Campbell, Jonny Rokeby, Shanker, Ted Nancarrow, and Cormoran Strike with a ‘plus’ question about Ellacott the Incredible Cartomantist are all featured. See you after the jump! [Read more…]

At the close of Troubled Blood, our love birds were off to the Ritz Hotel in London to celebrate Robin’s birthday and the successful resolution of the Margot Bamborough case (the place is a head nod to Robin’s suggestion on the night Strike knocked her lights out, blackening both her eyes, that they go to the Ritz, hold the sarcasm). If Ink Black Heart opens where Strike 5 closed — and why not? — I’m hopeful we’ll hear them discuss three things: the painting of Leda and the Swan on the wall, Strike’s health, and the Third Man factor, Jonny Rokeby the living ghost-presence in Cormoran’s life.

For what I think they might say over the champagne tea and buffet — and their conversations are always most interesting if they are drunk or in the Range Rover ancient-of-days — join me after the jump! [Read more…]