Lethal White, if as suspected it is the ‘story turn’ or pivot in the CormoranStrike series as Goblet of Fire was to the Hogwarts saga, must include a crisis that points to the action of the next several books and especially to the finale in Strike7. Evan Willis has given a credible explanation of what this might look like in his ‘Mythic Context’ post, namely that those characters who have lost their beloveds to Cormoran and Robin, Matt Cunliffe and Charlotte Campbell-Ross respectively, will be going to war to exact revenge.

It’s not hard to imagine this scenario; Charlotte has clearly ‘weaponized’ Jago Ross to hate Cormoran via the Strike case internet searches she let him find and her ‘dinner date’ with Strike while hubbie was Stateside and Matt will have lost his house, his job, his self-respect and his ability to go home to Massham when Robin divorces him. It won’t take much for Charlotte to turn him into a guided missile. It’s a far cry from the re-incarnation of the Dark Lord in a Black Mass at Little Hangleton graveyard (please note the ‘hanging’ element there and the graveyard aspect of the Dell scene in White…) but we have been told sufficient times in the first four Strike mysteries that Charlotte is an animal who lives for revenge that it seems almost a promise.

Having said that, how are Cormoran and Robin vulnerable to investigation and exposure via Mitch Patterson and whomever Ross might hire or Cunliffe may enlist? Is there some secret that the C. B. Strike Detective Agency has that could mean their ruin and the end of Robin and Cormoran’s seemingly destined marriage in the finale? Was it shared in Lethal White? Yes, yes, and yes, I think so. I explain after the jump. [Read more…]

In my post last week about the Dickensian Cryptonyms found throughout Lethal White I neglected to mention or guess at the Cratylic meaning of ‘Lorelei Bevan,’ the girlfriend of Cormoran Strike. The first name is discussed in the text but the last name, Bevan, is only mentioned once (ch 11, p 113).

Lorelei was her real name, taken not from the mythical siren of the Rhine, but from Marilyn Monroe’s character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, her mother’s favorite film. ch 11, p 115

I wrote two friends in the UK about the name and both replied it was almost certainly a reference to Aneurin Bevan, the Welsh radical leftist who founded the UK’s Welfare State after WWII. I’d never heard the name before, but it turns out he is something of an iconic figure for liberals in England, Scotland, and especially Wales; one online poll on the subject of ‘100 Welsh Heroes‘ placed him as #1. {Aside: Note that Jack o’Kent plays a part in the life of Owen Glendower, #2 in that poll.}

Join me after the jump for an introduction to this Bevan, the many pointers to him in Lethal White, and my best guess as to why Lorelei, of all people, was stuck with this surname. [Read more…]

It has been a month since the publication of Lethal White, believe it or not! I am on my fourth reading, if you count listening to the audio-book as ‘reading,’ and, as with everything Rowling writes as ‘J. K.’ or ‘Robert Galbraith,’ the several depths at which the story works and its interior organization, the story scaffolding, only becomes clear after repeated visits. I look forward to sharing here what I’m learning in the coming month!

To mark the first anniversary of sorts of Lethal White‘s publication today, though, I am going to post my notes about Rowling’s Dickensian Cryptonyms specific to the fourth Strike novel, what Oxford’s Beatrice Groves calls ‘Cratylic Names’ (see her Literary Allusion in Harry Potter for more on this). They are only notes of a work in progress and I put them up to invite your comments, corrections, and complementary or contrarian insights.

I confess I especially hope for feedback from friends in the UK who will ‘hear’ associations that their relatively deaf American Cousins cannot, but this project of unwrapping the enigma of the Lethal White character names will need the input of all Serious Strikers. Please jump right in with your thoughts.

The 15 name list is alphabetical by surname – ‘Johnny Cash’ to ‘Della, Rhiannon, and Geraint Winn’ — and begins after the jump. See you over there.

[Read more…]