Structure is a big deal in Strike Studies, right? Much of what I wrote in my Part-By-Part reading of Troubled Blood was explanation of Rowling-Galbraith’s borderline OCD ring artistry in Strike5, but there are other structural elements that order and organize the novel’s progression start to finish.

The most obvious one, I think, is gift-giving at holidays and birthdays. Robin’s birthday is a marker in Parts one and seven, Christmas is the turn in the front half of the book, Valentine’s Day the novel’s pivot point in Part four, and Easter and its observance in Cornwall is the parallel with Christmas in the ‘back half’ of the book. Each marks the status quo in Strike’s struggle to change, to become more giving and understanding of others, rather than just the Agent of Vengeance and Justice. That’s worthy of a long post and I will add it to the list of more than fifty Troubled Blood post ideas I drew up this weekend (I kid you not).

The structural idea I want to explore today is that of Cornwall and how Cormoran’s trips there serve a “mythic function.” His four trips to Cornwall and his thoughts about and contact with same in the closing chapters, as with the gift-giving holidays and birthdays, are markers of Strike’s spiritual transformation, his experience of the nigredo, and his journey, if you will, to a transcendent realm. More after the jump! [Read more…]

In chapter two of Troubled Blood, Strike has a smoke outside The Victory before climbing the hill for another uncomfortable night and early morning wake-up at the Nancarrow homestead. His reflections and cigarette smoking are interrupted by Anna Phipps and Kim Sullivan who ask him to consider taking on the cold case of Margot Bamborough’s disappearance.

Two images are offered repeatedly through this discussion: a seal in the water beneath the sea break and three young men catching a boat-ride. After the jump, I’ll review the times seals and the three drunk youths appear in the text and their probable source in Christian iconography, specifically, images from the life of St Maudez for whom St Mawes, Cornwall, is named. [Read more…]

Joan’s funeral service finished with the hymn most beloved of sailors, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” While the congregation sang the familiar words, Ted, Strike, Dave Polworth and three of Ted’s comrades in the lifeboat service shouldered the coffin back down the aisle of the simple cream-walled church, with its wooden beams and its stained-glass windows depicting purple-robed St. Maudez, for whom both village and church were named. Flanked by an island tower and a seal on a rock, the saint watched the coffin-bearers pass out of the church.

O Savior, whose almighty word
The winds and waves submissive heard,
Who walked upon the foaming deep,
And calm amidst the rage did sleep…

Today, a little music. Tomorrow, some thoughts about the saint and the “seal on a rock.”