A Hogwarts Professor Guest Post by Joanne Gray

Lethal White and the Death of Leda Strike: Heroin Hydrochloride

With the announcement that the long delayed and eagerly awaited fourth book of the Cormoran Strike book series would be called “Lethal White”, those who heard the news immediately began to Google the two word title and devour the information on something called, “Lethal White Syndrome.” [See the HogwartsProfessor discussion here.]

As people absorbed the definition of “Lethal White Syndrome” and discovered it was a fatal genetic condition of…American paint horses their initial excitement about a ‘great catch’ about what the next mystery would be about faded a little, even with Rowling’s theme of eugenics. Though this ‘Lethal White’ referred to a fatal condition, it was for a different species than human beings and death-by-genetics not foul play. If this was the heart of Strike’s next murder mystery, how would one go about arresting Mother Nature?

Sometimes finding a good firm wall blocking the easy path you’ve taken, in order to research something, is actually a good thing. In my case it caused me to step back and take a broader view of things. Could ‘Lethal White’ be a reference to a major background element in Career of Evil, the mysterious death of Leda Strike?
[Read more…]

Yesterday J. K. Rowling had a contest on Twitter, the winner of which would win an autographed copy of her next Cormoran Strike mystery. The challenge was to figure out the title of this book from the clue “- – – H – – – H – – -.”

I found the clue all but impossible to grasp. Was it one word or two or three? Was it a picture of, say, a suspension bridge?

Fortunately, there are legions of cryptographers in the twittersphere and we had an answer, the right answer, in a little over an hour, from a Rowling reader in Singapore. The title is ‘Lethal White.’ Prof Freeman informed me that, no, this was not a pointer to whose lives matter and the danger of armed Caucasian policemen (hurrah!), but the name of a fatal genetic abnormality among horses. I kid you not.

Three notes off the cuff about this title after the jump! [Read more…]

So, where were we? Denmark Street, London, just off Charing Cross Road. Right. Have you got the picture in your head? Good. Here’s a question from a serious reader about an event in Career of Evil you probably didn’t think too much about, one that takes place on Denmark Street as Robin and Cormoran enter #26 (Career, p. 253).

Hi john!! Just finished COE. Wondering if you know why jo never confirmed who the roses were from or what the card said. I was so curious if they were def from Matthew & what he wrote! Or if they were from Laing. But we never got the info. I know Jo doesn’t drop bald so it was purposeful & I guess it didn’t matter as much as it mattered to me? What do you think?
Sondra

I answered promptly that I didn’t think this was the big deal Sondra thought it was — what the Ents call “hasty.”

Dear Sondra,

A delight to hear from you.

I’m listening to the Robert Glenister audio CDs of Career of Evil now and just heard the pivotal chapters in which the red roses appear. Because of your email I was paying particular attention to the neglected note that came with the roses. And of course you’re right — the roses are neglected and thrown away without the note being read.

As I’ve written already, the roses that appear in the critical central chapters are pointers to both the white roses of the wedding at story’s end and the ‘flowers in season’ critical clue for Cormoran’s breaking Ray William’s alibi. I’d note, too, that they arrive by courier and are unwelcome markers of misogyny to Robin, they are echoes of the leg she received in chapter 2. 

It may be a stretch, but it could be that Rowling is linking Matt and Laing as two men who both understand women as selfish creatures that are easily manipulated to his preferred usage (‘abusage’). Because I cannot think of anyone else who could have sent them, Robin’s explanation about Matt’s dad seems satisfactory to me.

Let me know if you think of a credible rose sender other than Matt!

Fraternally,

John

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On my trip home from Swansea University in Wales, I had six hours on a Friday afternoon to see London. Which, of course, is absurd. I decided, though, to see one thing in London rather than lounging in the Heathrow hotel. I was going to see where Robin and Cormoran work, where he lives, and where they both have gotten drunk in their grief about lost loves. I jumped on the tube for Picadilly Circus.

The ride in was a delight and Picadilly was in its splendor this cool Friday afternoon. Tourists, local youth, and shoppers made the eight point intersection around the statue of Christian Charity (‘Eros’ to Robin and to most others) hum with activity and excitement. It was relatively easy to imagine Matt on one knee and Robin (and the bums) enjoying his proposal.

Having started my London adventure where the Strike novels begin, more or less, I asked a bystander who looked as bemused and entertained as I felt how I could get to Charing Cross Road, my avenue to Denmark Street and Tottenham Pub. He told me he’d just use his phone to find out, with the hint of impatience suggesting I could use my Smart phone to do that myself. I held up my flip Dumb Phone and he nodded. Turns out he was a German tourist. I was from farther out-of-town, he confessed, and he pointed me down one of the many streets meeting at the statue from every point of the compass.

And off I went. It reminded me quite a bit of NYC’s Time Square but there were more open public spaces for busker musicians and street performers. Every intersection seemed to buzz with people eating and drinking and watching the magic before them. I was at Charing Cross in only a short walk, a busy avenue without any of the pedestrian openness of the Circus and environs.

I was excited to be approaching Cormoran’s street, home to his flat and his business premises. Thinking about the Peg-Legged Private Eye I was startled to be thrust back to earth by another piece of Rowling’s imaginative universe. The Palace Theatre in London’s West End, well, it’s three blocks from Strike’s digs. ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ almost knocked me off my feet with the surprise I felt on stumbling over it on my way to something no one else was interested in.

But there was quite the crowd milling about the front of The Palace Theatre and the great majority were taking pictures of themselves standing in front of the over-sized signage and symbol of the play. I asked a young couple to take my picture and they were happy to oblige. They had me on distance traveled; they hailed from Australia and were very serious Harry Potter fans, they assured me.

I walked on, a little dazed from that bit of Potter Mania while in search of Rowling’s neglected hero’s home. And then there it was: Denmark Street.

Denmark Street just off Charing Cross Road is a peculiar avenue, odd even for the delightful interplay of architecture across centuries pervading London.

The building that Strikers believe are his premises and flat is number 26. For why they believe that, please take your first trip (it won’t be your last) to the Google Maps guide to Cormoran Strike’s London.

Number 26, the building with the black door and which formerly had a club on its ground floor (since moved 3 1/2 miles north) has the appearance of being abandoned and suitable for demolition. No joke. I think part of the roof may already have collapsed into the top floor.

The street, though, is something else. A jumping place!

The street isn’t even half a football pitch long, is narrow enough that traffic is one way (and slow moving as it intersects with the very busy Charing Cross), and none of the buildings can be less than two centuries old. I’d say more than one or two could be three hundred, easy.

I asked a young woman on a smoke break from a shop across Denmark Street from the seemingly abandoned 26 if she would take my picture in front of the black door. I told her it was the home of Cormoran Strike and explained who he is when she gave me a blank, suspicious stare. Harry Potter? Big fan. Cormoran who? The bloke you take your smoke breaks with!

And they’re almost all music shops! A majority of those are guitar stores, new and used, three stories tall, privately owned, selling guitars for decades. One website I read calls Cormoran’s home and business address “a centre of the British music industry.”

But the oddest thing? Right around the corner (and the streets aren’t on a grid, so Cormoran’s flat, if it is 26 Denmark Street, looks around the corner…), is St Giles in the Fields Church, Church of England.

St Giles’ is an amazing place. Took my breath away, truth be told, it was so unexpected and the interior so beautiful. Pictures here, history here. Not a mention in three books — and it’s ten steps from the Strike premises? Curious.

Ramshackle street of homey guitar stores and fronts in odd colors — to Georgian majesty. A string orchestra of ten players was practicing in the church when I stumbled in and they were playing period music fit for the church’s dedication (and playing very well indeed).

I vaguely recall some mention of the plague victims burial place in the Strike novels (or was it a novel set in Philadelphia with Small pox corpses buried beneath a park? memory…) but I don’t remember this neighboring church being mentioned as the landmark it is.

Robin’s guidebook at the story start would have been all about this at she tried to find the address… I’m glad ‘Cursed Child’ hadn’t opened or she would have been obliged to mention that.

I did go to The Tottenham Pub, too, now The Flying Horse. Even a one legged man could make it there in two minutes on a slow day. The pedestrian of one or two legs cannot fail to notice the skyscraper and parking garage construction all about in this area. Pneumatic drills? You betcha. And cranes and trucks — and a lot of noise. Just like the books.

I had skipped lunch and it had been quite the day since my hurried breakfast in south Wales. I was really looking forward to a Doom Bar with fish and chips at Cormoran’s preferred pub. But it was not to be.

The lady behind the bar had never heard of Cormoran Strike — and, no, really it’s true, they don’t serve Doom Bar. And I was struck by the proportions of the place. It looked like someone had tried to perform an ‘inside bigger than the outside’ spell and sneezed so they got something like the reverse. Smaller and narrower than I imagined it, as in one third to one quarter the size I pictured.

Beautiful, intimate, and no food (I didn’t go to the separate room and bar downstairs which, by name at least, was a different establishment; did Cormoran go downstairs?). I took my ale to the very back, about fifteen steps from the front, and introduced myself to an older couple. They were in from Kent for the day and more than happy to take my picture. I should have asked them to take all the pictures because the beer on my empty stomach drowned whatever photography skills I ever had.

If Bluey raised his voice at the very back of this pub, they heard him in the street and everything would have stopped in between. 25 people in this place fills every seat and place to stand at the bar. The paintings and the ceiling light were just as described. The pub feel of neighborhood and privacy and clubbishness that Cormoran prizes in the Tottenham — I got it. Time to go home.

Walking with a nice buzz of ale and a mission accomplished, I meandered back down Charing Cross Road. I looked down one side street and, egad, The Mouse Trap, Agatha Christie’s landmark drama in St Martin’s Theatre. I ran down to and asked the lady at the ticket window how late that night’s performance went. Too late for me to be sure I could get back to Heathrow that night. Bummer.

And then I saw it. Another abandoned stone church from centuries past, this one on Charing Cross Road right where I’d turned off to walk into the Trap. I hadn’t noticed it on my way in or on my second trip by. The House of Black? This beautiful and once magnificent church was all but invisible now, surrounded by modern businesses with neon and inviting window displays. England was once a Christian country but no more. The museum piece of St Giles could not obscure the sarcophagi of the faith on every other avenue.

London confirmed what struck me again and again in Wales, where there were two empty or converted church buildings for every one that was active. On one side of a road on the walk back from the University into downtown Swansea there was a stone church that had been made into a mosque and Islamic Center. Immediately across the street from it, a cathedral sized building had chains around its gates and a sign that said it had been sold to a restaurant. My host told me the restaurant was zoned and approved to become a pole-dancing night club. A snap-shot of the fall of the West at one intersection.

I window shopped and entered every book store, new and used, on my way back down Charing Cross and then to Picadilly and the Tube Station. That filled my afternoon wonderfully, if I dreaded the next day of travel with even more books. I picked up a copy of The Fellowship at Foyle’s, the F. A. O. Schwartz of book sellers and began to read it even as I walked about, trying not to look too much like a tourist, but unable not to marvel at the work a day majesty of the West End buildings, legacies of Imperial and Fin de siecle Londoners.

I stopped at one of the many tourist trap shops, every one five or six times the size of the Tottenham Pub, in Picadilly for souvenirs my sons would enjoy. That took a while. I found just the things, though, to tie the bow on my perfect day in London in search of the Doom Bar Detective. Arsenal Football Club caps. Will anyone in Oklahoma City understand what the hat insignia mean? I doubt it, but the young Strike afficionados wear them proudly.

Lots of Cormoran Strike news to come — the teevee shows will be on HBO, Robin Ellacott has been cast, et cetera, et cetera. I’ll be reporting it (or reading the post here) when I get back from CONjuration 2016 in Atlanta this weekend. If you’re still undecided about next week’s election — “Canada or Mexico?” — don’t forget that you can write in the names of heroes you love, if only as a protest.