Rowling-Galbraith has suggested that the Strike series of ten books will end before the Covid lockdowns of 2020, which gives an endpoint to the series as plotted currently.

Given how ‘on board’ the author was with the ‘Save the NHS’ messaging, the huzzahs for the medical professionals who participated in the Covid-19 pandemic, and her enthusiasm, even cheerleading, for mRNA inoculations, I have to wonder if this deadline of convenience has less to do ultimately with the difficulties of writing a detective story during London Lockdown than the commitment of the Guilty to ‘forget’ their part in the nightmare of the last three years. “Don’t Let Them Get Away With It.”

Does anyone else among the Royal Society of Rowling Readers wish that The Presence would attempt something akin to what the Indiana Jones’ film makers have done? Imagine a world in which every decade or five years saw Warner Brothers Discovery create and release a blockbuster movie, a one-off adventure rather than a series, set in the scenes we know well from their adaptations of the Hogwarts Saga novels and with one or two of the characters.

Feel free to explain in the comment boxes why this will never happen, especially if you’re glad it is impossible or you really dislike Harrison Ford’s ‘Indiana Jones’ legacy. Me? I rarely go to theaters to see films, but I think I will go to see ‘Dial of Destiny’ before I watch the third Fantastic Beasts film or read the ‘Original Screenplay,’ the only Rowling product I have not studied closely. Must be an old man thing!

Happy Easter, Western Christians!

A dear friend, Lancelot Schaubert, sent me the picture below this morning, an image from a church, I’m assuming, somewhere in New York City. It’s of a hearth/altar whose carved centerpiece is a Pelican, a mother feeding her chicks from her own blood:

If you want to know the connection between this image, Rowling, Ink Black Heart, Christ’s sacrificial, maternal love and His relationship with the members of His mystical body in the Eucharist, not to mention my work, scroll down this Strike6 post to read ‘The Pelican At Last.’

Again, Happy Easter! And thank you, Lancelot, for the wonderful picture.

“When people say they want to read a really good novel, the kind you can’t put down, this is the kind of book they mean. Exceptional.” – Stephen King on November Road

If you’re looking for good books to read between now and the appearance of Running Grave, the novels of Lou Berney come highly recommended, as you can see in the video above or at Berney’s website about his two best known works, Long and Faraway Gone and November Road. Berney was my primary adviser in my MFA studies and almost all of our conversations (and my consequent papers) were about story structure; Long and Faraway Gone has the most intricate scaffolding of any book I’ve read (and mapped and enjoyed) with the exception of Troubled Blood, and, like Strike5, the structure complements and advances reader experience of the novel’s meaning. The Dante echoes in November Road will engage any serious reader of Robert Galbraith (and of Rowling’s Christmas Pig).

The good news today for his legion of fans is that Berney’s new book, Dark Ride, has been given a publication date. I have pre-ordered my hardcover and Audible copy, as well as marked 23 September on my calendar. I will be contacting him, in addition, in the hope that he will agree to be interviewed here about Dark Ride or his previous books.

Again, if you’re in need of a break from yet another read of Ink Black Heart or Aurora Leigh, please give November Road or Long and Faraway Gone a try — and let me know in the comment boxes if you’re interested in discussing either or both here at HogwartsProfessor. I expect that, if you do read either or both of those novels, you will be nearly as excited as I am about Dark Ride‘s publication.

From the book’s Amazon page: [Read more…]