We’re getting close! Just as was done before the release of Career of Evil, Galbraith’s publishers have released a teaser excerpt from Lethal White, to be published in only three days. You can read in this Guardian excerpt the context of the first meeting with Billy that was included in the book blurb last month. “He was murdered up by the horse.”
Every Galbraith novel thus far has begun one or several chapters in with the first meeting of Strike and his new client in his office: John Bristow, Leonora Quine, the leg of a murdered girl, and now Billy.
More important, we also have our first parallel with Cuckoo’s Calling, namely, the Cormoran B. Strike office having a new secretary. Denise, of course, is not as promising as Robin once was.
Is her presence a sign that Robin is on the Radford case mentioned in Career and for which we have a chain of command diagram? Or that Robin, having been fired, is no longer working for Strike? Or she is on her honeymoon and this is a ‘temporary solution’? Or that things are just looking up for celebrity detective Strike after solving the Ripper case in Career and the office can afford the help?
I guess it’s time for me to write up my predictions — and to regret not having done it earlier! (I think I can add that Denise won’t be with Strike long….) Let me know what you think of the excerpt, our first taste of Lethal White, in the comment boxes below.
Quick thoughts:
1. Billy pronounced “house” correctly at least once, suggesting that the horse the victim was strangled by is indeed of the equine variety, not a pronunciation of a regional dialect.
2. Given that Robin smiled for the only time at her wedding at Cormoran, I’m betting she is not fired. I vote the honeymoon option. If Denise was hired as secretary to Cormoran and Robin, detective partners, Robin would have fired her by now.
3. I doubt Robin is off on the office assignment… that plot line seems to be the polar opposite of the manor house mystery we’ve been promised. I think that is a sketch meant for a later book.
4. I love the contrast between Denise’s (first?) day and Robin’s, where she was 100% efficient and discreet. You don’t find her “gabbling” or “whimpering.”
5. What’s Cormy running in with a hurt leg–again–for?
For Beatrice Groves’ fascinating thoughts about the Uffington White Horse, to include its connection, believe it or not, to a Chocolate Frog Card in Harry Potter, see her ‘Lethal White Horses‘ posted at MuggleNet today.
I love, Louise, that you call the Doom Bar Detective “Cormy.” Only Helen Anstis calls him that, according to Strike, and he “had never bothered to tell her he disliked it” (Silkworm, ch 23, p 179).
And the leg pain? Has there been a Cormoran Strike novel yet when he doesn’t have leg problems? It’s one of the Ten Things That Have to Happen in Lethal White I’ll be discussing tomorrow…