JK Rowling walks away from the detectives of the XNUMXst century under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
JK Rowling's literary adventure in the Novelty, published with the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, gives us to Cormorant Strike: a tenacious detective, ex-military, ex-boxer, ugly and strong despite missing a leg below the knee. A tough guy who in another era would wear a hat and a cigar permanently hanging from the corner of his mouth.
Rowling introduces us to her side, one step behind, to the female lead, Robin, who shares cases and an office with Strike, but with features of the women of the fifties: Robin, determined, persistent, fragile and in need of protection.
Cormoran Strike dates Ellin, a beautiful and successful millionaire, Robin with Maxwell, a boy who does not respect his work and would prefer that he dedicate himself to a more conventional and better paid profession. Robin is an endearing character with admirable traits, intelligent and a fighter, but she needs and admires Strike in such an intense and even intimate way, that it alienates the character from the woman who fights for her place, on equal terms, in society. XXI century.
Strike, on the other hand, he is closer to Philippe Marlowe than to modern detectives, is far from a familiar Brunetti who admires his wife, Paola, with whom he shares gastronomic and literary tastes. Throughout the series we get to know Cormoran Strike, his stark childhood with an addicted mother and a violent, narcissistic and lazy stepfather. This step frames the character of Strike, we know much more about him than we knew about the first detectives who gave life to the crime novel, but the result is similar, because his experiences do not leave any emotional wound in him, Strike is not afraid , is a good, strong and protective man, whom sometimes, without wanting to, it's easy to put on the face of Humprey Bogart as Sam Spade or Stacy Keach on the unforgettable television series Mike Hammer.
To Robin, who has suffered a rape while still in college and has struggled to overcome it, although she did not find the courage to graduate after the assault, it's hard to compare her to detectives like Kinsey Milhone, Petra Delicado, or let alone with characters like Lisbeth Salader. Rowling builds a detective worthy of XNUMXs society, much closer to Philippe Marlowe's perfect secretary than to a detective With a traumatic past, he faces the most sordid criminals as Amaia Salazar.
How about Ana, let me tell you that I have really enjoyed these books, there is something in them that simply caught me. Although I partly agree with your character analysis, for me Robin offers much more than what criticism reveals, at least in the last installment she has shown her most special qualities, she is not a detective, she is beginning to get involved in it , Being a detective was more of a childhood dream that is beginning to live, comparing her with a detective at this stage of her character does not seem entirely fair, in addition, it is well known that her blind devotion to Strike is no longer so and I'm completely sure that more challenges to Strike's methods will come from you. Far from classifying her as a detective of the 40s society, I consider her to be a XNUMXst century woman who, like many others, is in that trance of forgetting to be the perfect woman to find herself. I would wait to judge her as a detective at least until the next book 😉
Hello Magali: I don't dislike Robert Galbraith's books, although I'm honest: I don't love them, but here I am, recurring reader, with The Office of Evil just finished. I love the classic novel with the tough guys in the role of detective; Philippe Marlowe or Sam Spade were great and I like to reread them from year to year, just as a few weeks ago I found one of the Perry Mason cases lost on my shelf and was very excited to lose a couple of hours with him again. Today the black genre has evolved, like all genres, and the characters are more current, more similar to the real people of the society we live in today. As in Agatha Christie's novels, they communicated by telegrams and today detectives use WhatsApp and email. Today women play a leading role at the same level as men and many authors are committed to it. Rowling's three novels in the noir genre remind me of the classics much more than the modern ones, in everything, female and male characters and that's not bad, it's a style. What surprises me is this choice of an author with the personal experiences of JK Rowling and I think that publishing under a male pseudonym is significant in the style she chooses for her black series. Of course, I pay attention to you, and here I will be, ready to read the fourth installment. We will see how Robin evolves because perhaps, as you say, he matures as a person and as a detective and a surprise is waiting for us. I would be very happy if it were so. And if not, it will not be to my taste, but that will not make it better or worse as a novel.
Thank you very much for reading the article, for giving your opinion, for commenting, and for discovering us another angle from which to observe the story.