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Seven Strikes, still not out |

Review of ‘The Running Grave’
by Robert Galbraith
December 15, 2023 10:06 am | Updated 10:06 am IST

In what may be the best instalment in the

series yet, author J.K. Rowling delivers a plot
complete with the works

MUKUND PADMANABHAN

Actors Tom Burke (as Cormoran Strike) and Holliday Grainger (as Robin
Ellacott) in the TV adaptation of the Strike series.

Clearly, J.K. Rowling — or Robert Galbraith as she

prefers to call herself in the Strike novels — has
taken no note of the criticism in some quarters
that her previous book, The Ink Black Heart,
could have benefited from a careful, sparing use of
the editorial scissor. At around 950 pages, The
Running Grave, the latest and seventh novel in
her series featuring Cormoran Strike, the craggily
attractive one-legged detective, is around the
same size.

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There is a pattern here: her Harry Potter novels

got sequentially longer. This reflects the
confidence of a bestselling author who knows she
has already snared an enormous number of
readers in her fictional web, an addicted fanhood
that eagerly awaits her next offering. Disclosure:
this reviewer is a fully paid-up member of the
group.

As one may expect, that familiar parallel plot —

the suspenseful romantic tension between Strike
and his business partner Robin Ellacott —
remains unbroken, unreleased. But there is
progress of sorts on this achingly unfulfilled
passion, with a crusty Strike finally being able to
admit to himself that he is in love with Robin. As
for the latter, she battles with her feelings for
Cormoran, as she evaluates her somewhat tepid
relationship with police officer Ryan Murphy.

The Running Grave pushes the fictional

envelope in another way. For much of the book,
Robin and Cormoran are investigating the case,
about the strange and murderous ways of a
modern religious cult called the Universal
Humanitarian Church, on their own. The latter
from his London office and the former, who
successfully infiltrates the UHC’s centre in a
farm in Norfolk, working from the inside.

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As a detective, this is a coming-of-age novel for
Robin. This is not merely because she plays a
much larger role, risking all manner of things
from being outed to being tortured and molested
while unearthing the perversions and the deaths
that a secretive UHC has covered up. It is mainly
because she is now a woman who can take her
own decisions, keeping information from
Cormoran when it is sensible to, defying him
when required.

The two get on the job after being commissioned

by an anxious father, who has lost his son, Will
Edensor, as well as all access to him, to the UHC.
Drawing from many religions and belonging to
none, the church has succeeded in brainwashing
its followers to suffer physical and sexual abuse
and adopt a lifestyle that demands the
suppression of individuality and all attachment.
It trades on Western susceptibility to Confucian,
Buddhist and Hindu tropes — one of the
favourite chants of the cult is the Sanskrit ‘Lokah
Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu (May everyone in
the world be happy)’.

The man who helms the UHC is Johnathan Wace

— Papa J —a smooth-talking charmer who can be
funny, self-deprecatory, and undemanding, asking
nothing more of potential UHC recruits than to
“admit the possibility”. In short, the possibility
that the minds of people are occluded by a
materialist conspiracy that prevents them from
seeking a true reality.

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How cults work

Author J.K Rowling, who writes under the pseudonym Robert

Galbraith. | Photo Credit: WireImage

Rowling appears to have done some work on how

cults operate as she convincingly lays out the
process of marketing, enlisting, retaining and
indoctrinating, an undertaking not unlike that of
the corporate machinery that these
denominations critique and ostensibly seek to
escape from. Even Robin must remind herself
now and then to stay focussed on the
investigation and not get derailed by the
persuasive force of the atmosphere on the farm
and its relentless messaging.

It is hard to compare books in the series but this

one more than earns the right to be regarded as
one of the best Strikes yet. One reason for this is
that the plot is compellingly credible; the same
cannot wholeheartedly be said of some of the
other books, hugely enjoyable though they
are. The Running Grave never flags, the side-
plots, the false leads, the minor characters, the
complex twists and the tangled turns
contributing to a big meaty novel that is hard to
put down, difficult to resist sinking your teeth
into.

There is a great self-assuredness here and the size

of the book is a reflection of this. Rowling knows,
just as many of her fans do, that there is no such
thing as too much of a good thing.

The Running Grave

Robert Galbraith
Hachette
₹999

The reviewer teaches philosophy at Krea

University and is the former editor
of ‘The Hindu’.

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