I’ve at last finished my first read through and started my targeted read-back through of the latest installment in J.K Rowling’s Strike series. We’ll be doing some serious deep dives into this volume, of course,  but I wanted to go ahead and share some of my initial thoughts which may, for some of you, be similar to your own. Just in case you are reading this post before completing your own complete read of the twisting tale of silver, murder, and convoluted relationships galore, I am splitting my Top Ten Initial Thoughts into Spoiler Free and Spoiler-Rife, so if you prefer to solve the mysteries alongside our Denmark Street detectives, you’ll want to stop at number four!

1. The first of ten thoughts—Ten!

I am always fascinated by number patterns, particularly in Rowling’s work, and not just because I have spent a great deal of time in Panem lately, a world Suzanne Collins meticulously lines with number symbolism. We are used to Rowling and her care with numbers from the Hogwarts adventures, and she has continued that attention to symbolic and literal numbering in the Strike books. In this installment, one of the first things I noticed with interest was the use of the number 10. Before the end of the first chapter, our first non-series character is introduced, Decima Mullins. Her name, with its Latin root of “ten,”  sets up the use of ten throughout. The book is broken in 10 segments of varying length, plus an epilogue. Other tens crop up as well. Since Rowling has made it clear that she plans for a ten-book series, the use of tens certainly reinforces that. Knowing that only two more books remain places added emphasis on the events of this one. It also reminds us of the ten-year age gap between Strike and Robin, which continues to cause him stress, but which we are hoping to see overcome by the time the series, like this book, counts to ten.

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