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…]
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