Usually when I read a new JK Rowling book, I inhale deeply and say, (inwardly) "Oh Dame Rowling, you just go from strength to strength--first, with the Harry Potter series--the messiah who lived, then the Cormoran Strike series--the impotent private dick. Sure, she turned out a bad one or two (CASUAL VACANCY, anybody), but you figure--she's just trying to find her voice after the Potter retired, full grown, a bureaucrat in the wizarding world, struggling with spread sheets and budget cuts--school is magical, work not so. A parent's job is to successfully launch her children into independence--well done you.
So we read CUCKOO'S CALLING with great excitement. Strike and Ellacott. All the avian imagery--robins, cuckoos. Cormoran is almost like cormorant. But Cormoran without a t is a Cornish giant, who terrorified the home counties until Jack the Giant Killer pops up (here is a link to our god, Wikipedia's entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormoran). LIterary and pop culture references. Strike is the natural son of Jonny Rokeby, a rock musician. Strike joins the British Armed Forces, rises to the level of their equivalency of Green Berets, then, in the blink of an eye, while serving in Afghanistan, an IED blows off half a leg and he is now a TBI and an amputee. The series starts in London, 2010, when Robin Ellacott, affianced to a stock jobber (or some sort of financial wizard without the menschlikeit of Potter) shows up at Strike's office, sent to be a clerical temp. And the game's afoot. Sherlock Holmes, a cocaine addict, had Watson, the injured physician, also home from Afghanistan after suffering a leg injury. Robin, of course, is also wounded, having dropped out of uni after rape. She thinks she wants safety. Guess again.
So Rowling (aka Galbraith) has found her new voices. Where would Frodo have been without Sam? Sherlock without Watson? Harry without Hermione? The organizing principle personified. And four Strike/Ellacott novels later, she authors THE INK BLACK HEART. Now it's 2015. Robin is a partner. Strike and Ellacott have a f/t clerical, a raspy voice e-vaper, named Pat, and two or three part-time contractors. Now they have a new case, the death of the young creator of a Youtube cartoon called "The Ink Black Heart." Harty, as the character is known, may be based on the death of the "witch" Margaret Read. The action is set at a real cemetery (Highgate). And, like Potter, the fandom has gone beyond the four walls of the cartoon. There is a game, where players take on the names of characters from the cartoon and play. The gin to the plot--The cartoon has gone corporate, from Youtube to Netflix. The game, which was started by fans, is not. The female creator is trolled and doxxed. Then, murdered. And the game (hahahah) is afoot and aflame.
Problem is, Rowling was trolled and doxxed for her positions on sex vs gender. Rowling, remember, is an author. An educated woman. But not a biologist. But as she found out, when fandom is aroused, the flame wars begin. She was roasted as a witch, like Margaret Read, I suppose. And out of her chest burst her ink-black heart.
If you've ever read Edwin Gorey--it's all reminiscent of the Gashlicrumb Tinies stories, the gruesome alphabetary he devises, where, pre-Willy Wonka, bad things happen to children being children. The illustrations all cry out--Gorey poached. I'm surprised none of the reviews mentions the influence of Gorey on IBH.
Problem is, the writing is too stiff and mechanical. Too much exposition to bring up the back stories of Robin and Cormoran. Too much of the 1012 pages is Rowling showing off how clever she is. Too much about the personal lives of Robin and Cormoran--okay, okay, they are tortured individuals who no one in their right mind wants to be in a relationship with. Too much Cathy and Heathcliff. Even Charlotte Bronte got Jane and Edwin together with more finesse, more imagery, more bird metaphors, and less black-ink. And then the interpolated novel within, where we are invited into the private chats of the moderators of IBH. The esthetics are torturous. Three columns of different chats, going on for pages and pages, in abominable font and tortured prose, which, I suppose, is veridical as well as vertical.
JRR Tolkien got Frodo and company through a year where Frodo managed to save Middle Earth in less than 1012 pages.
And that's another thing--JRR Tolkien made up songs and poetry. Rowling/Galbraith in every book has to start every chapter with some obscure work of poetry or prose which supposedly advances the plot. It's just too much. By this book--I find it tiresome.
By all rights, a good author would, after churning out these 1012 pages, would take a deep breath, relax her muscles, feel the catharsis of having trolled the trolls and doxxed the doxxers--and REVISE.