Cormoran Strike actor Tom Burke gave a recent interview to The Guardian where he dropped a super-strong hint about his real-life mother’s role in the Troubled Blood TV adaptation. Actress Anna Calder-Marshall was announced as part of the cast last February, but her exact role has yet to be mentioned. Given the familial relationship to title star Burke, many speculated that Ms. Calder-Marshall would be Aunt Joan Nancarrow.  However, Burke’s recent statement suggests otherwise:

Doesn’t your mother, Anna Calder-Marshall, appear in the new series?
She does and she’s fantastic in it. The first scene we had was also with Carol MacReady, who’s a wonderful actor. Her and my mum go way back and it was a joy to be in a scene with both of them. I haven’t acted with my parents in a long while, since doing Victoria Wood sketches and silly stuff in local theatre in Kent.

Carol MacReady plays Irene, making it almost inevitable that Ms. Calder-Marshall is Janice. Is there any other character you would expect to be in a scene with both Strike and Irene?

If true, this will be a nice bit of Strike-trivia going forward. Can anyone think of another detective-killer duo played by a real-life parent-offspring pair?

I suggest reading the full interview; it has some interesting tidbits not only about Troubled Blood, but about Burke’s late godfather, Alan Rickman.

Hat-tip to Strikefans.com!

I just saw a Facebook posting where someone shared a recent communication from Amazon:

I haven’t dived into the mythic elements of Cormoran Strike as much as my fellow faculty here, mainly because it is out of my area of expertise.  However,  a couple of my comments on one of John’s lengthy posts on the topic, I speculated that:

1. If Strike and Robin are stand-ins for Cupid and Psyche, their eventual child should be a girl with a name meaning “Pleasure.” and
2. Charlotte could be an anti-Psyche in the same way Morris was an anti-Eros.  That thought let to the idea that her daughter with Ross might have a name meaning “Pain” or “Sorrow”– a moniker fitting for Jago’s fourth unwanted not-the-heir-child. I suggested Lolita, both short for Dolores and a nod to Nabokov’s most famous female protagonist.

As usual, I wasn’t exactly right, but the child’s name is “Mary,” for which one meaning is “bitter.”  More importantly, this makes Charlotte’s daughter a namesake to the original “Our Lady of Sorrows.”  (Aside:  her brother’s name, James, derives from Jacob and means “supplanter”–  fitting for one who is destined to receive the full inheritance at the expense of his siblings).

With the small amount of confidence that half-guess gave me, I’m going to plunge into a raging ocean of speculation:  that Robin’s new beau, DCI Ryan Murphy, will also play a mythic role in the series. Furthermore, he will play the role of that ill-tempered deity of oceans and horses, and father of Percy Jackson, Poseidon (Neptune to Romans).

Find out why after the jump. [Read more…]

OK, Trivia Buff(ypaws), the Sporcle quiz on the top 100 most-mentioned Strike characters has been expanded and updated, and now has 130 names, including characters from The Ink Black Heart. I must admit, I don’t fully understand how they counted, given that Gus Upcott, Anomie and Paperwhite all have separate entries. I also don’t know if things like Twitter handles are included.  Does every mention of anomie@anomiegamemaster count as two?  Does @RealPaperwhite also go into Paperwhite’s tally?

In any case, it’s fun.  My first run through I got 85%, and would have gotten a few others, except that I’ve been listening to the audiobook and was therefore off on a few spellings. My record is 127/130, with apologies to Evan Duffield, Seb Montgomery and Madeline’s son Henry for forgetting them.

Check it out!