Was the ending of Troubled Blood — Strike’s three birthday presents for Robin’s 30th — Rowling-Galbraith’s message in coded language that the hitherto Platonic friendship was about to become sexual as well?

Did champagne lead to a room upstairs at the Ritz for the birthday celebration both really want?

I think so. The clue is in this video comment by Rowling-Galbraith’ on ‘Partnerships.’

Join me after the jump for the clue and my jump from that small ledge to a bedroom at the Ritz. [Read more…]

I have been reading and listening to Rowling-Galbraith’s Troubled Blood semi-continuously since its release last September. That sounds pretty boring and I suppose you’d be justified in the charitable suggestion that I “get a life.” I do it, though, because every trip through the seventy-some chapters reveals something I missed on all the previous journeys. There is, as Rowling once said, by design “always one more treat, undiscovered, at the bottom of the bag” to reward the re-reader.

That is not to say that the zealot re-reader may not wind up imagining connections and suggestive clues that are not there.

As an example of the sort of imaginary or great findings I’m talking about, I offer in this post three treats I found on my most recent odyssey down Glenister Audio Book Boulevard, all of which involve Strike’s beloved Uncle Ted Nancarrow.

We have recently been exploring the possibility that Ted killed Cormoran’s mother Leda; in Who Killed Leda Strike? Uncle Ted Did It, I argue that he did the dirty deed and in Who Killed Leda Strike, Suicide Victim? Leda, Rokeby, Whittaker, Ted, or Dave? I explain why he probably didn’t. Yesterday we discussed a theory that Leda killed herself to set-up Whittaker to go down for murder. I was struck this week by three strange notes Rowling-Galbraith sounds in Troubled Blood, all about Uncle Ted, all more than a little weird, and all consequently of some interest.

Join me after the jump for a closer look at Uncle Ted’s chocolate problem, his experience as a Red Cap in the Falklands War, and at the folks who sent flowers to Aunt Joan’s funeral. [Read more…]

I received an email yesterday from Katya Slonenko, a Serious Striker in Holland, that was an invitation to read an article she’d written and posted on Reddit’s Cormoran Strike thread about the Blue Oyster Cult lyric that Leda Strike had tattooed above her pudenda. With her permission, I post her note to me below and my response to her, one I wrote after reading “Why did Leda have a Mistress of the Salmon Salt tattoo? Because She was the Quicklime Girl. And What’s That?” at Reddit.

In brief, my conclusion from what Ms Slonenko reveals about the the song, the particular lyric, and that Rowling-Galbraith gives the tattoo such importance in Strike’s memories of Whittaker at his murder trial and in Laing’s terrorist note to Robin with the woman’s severed leg is that Whittaker almost certainly did not kill his wife. I hope you will read the Reddit piece and my thoughts on it posted after the jump and that you will offer your thoughts here about the meaning of the tattoo.

I wish to thank Ms Slonenko for writing this challenging piece on a subject neglected here at HogwartsProfessor and for inviting our comments on it (her note is addressed to the ‘The HogwartsProfessor Team’ — and that includes y’all, of course). Enjoy! [Read more…]

After being chastised by Robin for pretending not to know his astrological sun sign, Strike tells her what he recalls of his natal chart (Troubled Blood, pp 240-242):

“What’s your sign?” asked Robin, trying to work it out.

“No idea.”

“Oh sod off,” said Robin. He looked at her, taken aback. “You’re being affected!” she said. “Everyone knows their star sign. Don’t pretend to be above it.”

Strike grinned reluctantly, took a large drag on his cigarette, exhaled, then said, “Sagittarius, Scorpio rising, with the sun in the first house.” 

“You’re—” Robin began to laugh. “Did you just pull that out of your backside, or is it real?”

“Of course, it’s not fucking real,” said Strike. “None of it’s real, is it? But yeah. That’s what my natal horoscope says. Stop bloody laughing. Remember who my mother was. She loved all that shit. One of her best mates did my full horoscope for her when I was born. I should have recognized that straight off,” he said, pointing at the goat drawing.

“But I haven’t been through this properly yet, haven’t had time.”

“So what does having the sun in the first house mean?”

“It means nothing, it’s all bollocks.”

Robin could tell that he didn’t want to admit that he’d remembered, which made her laugh some more.

Half-annoyed, half-amused, he muttered, “Independent. Leadership.”

Did Rowling actually go to the trouble of giving Strike a birth place, date, and time for a natal chart whose aspects and characteristics would to match the detective she created? After the jump, a quick look at what online astrological mavens say about (1) Sagittarians, (2) those people with rising signs in Scorpio, and (3) the meaning of having the sun in your first house. The short answer? Yes, she did. [Read more…]