 UK first edition cover | |
| Author | Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling) |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime fiction |
| Publisher | Sphere Books |
Publication date | 26 September 2023 |
| Pages | 960 |
| ISBN | 978-0-3165-7210-1 |
| Preceded by | The Ink Black Heart |
The Running Grave is a crime fiction novel written by J. K. Rowling, and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It was published 26 September 2023. It is the seventh novel in the Cormoran Strike series. [1]
Sir Colin Edensor, a retired civil servant, approaches Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott's detective agency seeking assistance extricating his son Will from the Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC), which has been deemed a cult by critics but claims to be a benevolent charity. Will, who has autism, had joined the church and cut off all contact with his family, and was believed to be living on a farm (Chapman Farm near Aylmerton in Norfolk) operated by the church and serving as its headquarters.
As Strike reads about the UHC, he realises that it was formed on the site of a 1960s to 1980s commune, the Aylmerton Community, and this was one of the places Strike, and his half-sister Lucy, had lived as a child, as his mother Leda Strike drifted around the country. The commune had closed after its leaders were arrested for child sexual abuse, but Strike had not himself been abused in this manner. He still intensely dislikes the place. When he talks to Lucy about his plans to investigate the church, and mentions the location, he anticipates a negative reaction due to their shared bad experiences, but she has an even worse reaction than he expects; she reveals that she was sexually assaulted as a child on the farm, and was led to her abuser by a girl named Mazu, who is now one of the leaders of the UHC.
Robin volunteers to infiltrate the UHC, getting a makeover as somebody with "more money than sense". Meanwhile, both detectives find former church members to interview, and dig up records of incidents connected to the church; there have been several mysterious deaths in the past, including the drowning of a 7-year-old girl in 1995, Daiyu, Mazu's daughter, who is now regarded as the "Drowned Prophet", central to the church's mythology. There are several other deceased church members also regarded as prophets.
After attending services at the UHC temple in London, Robin, in her identity as "Rowena Ellis", is invited to a retreat at Chapman Farm. Strike and the agency staff and contractors work out a system to keep in touch with her at the farm; they set up a fake hollow rock they will check to exchange notes with her. As planned, she joins the church in a baptism ceremony at the end of the retreat. She finds out that Will Edensor, who is living on the farm as expected, has fathered a daughter, named Qing by Mazu who owns the naming rights to children born on the farm, with a teenage girl named Lin there. Church members are under pressure to have sex with other members (termed "spirit bonding"). All forms of birth control are banned there and pregnancy is encouraged.
While Robin is on the farm, Strike continues finding and interviewing people connected with the UHC, as well as dealing with other cases including investigating the stalking of an actress, Tasha Mayo. Other issues come up with the agency and Strike's personal life; a subcontractor, Clive Littlejohn, is found to be a "double agent" of a competing agency; Strike's uncle Ted, whose wife recently died, is diagnosed with dementia and is increasingly unable to live on his own; Strike's brief sexual dalliance with attorney Bijou Watkins drags him into the middle of a scandal resulting from her affair with another prominent attorney; and Strike's ex-fiancee Charlotte keeps on trying to get back into his life, this time telling him she has cancer.
On the farm, Robin talks to other members about what happened there in the past, relaying findings to the agency weekly via the hollow rock. While hiding in a barn, Robin finds Polaroid pictures featuring people in pig masks doing sexual acts, and puts them in the hollow rock the following week. She also stumbles onto a mysterious clearing with the remains of posts that have been cut off, and also finds out that there is a tree in the forest with a rusty hatchet in its roots.
After waking in a hotel near the beach where the drowning of Daiyu happened after a day of interviewing people who witnessed it, Strike finds out that ex-fiancee Charlotte has killed herself. He is racked with conflicting emotions of guilt and anger, and ends up going towards a tower in the distance, which he remembers (from his childhood on the commune) as visible from the farm where Robin is now; it resembled a chess rook, but he never knew what it was. It turns out to be a church, and Strike enters it and had a mental conversation with Charlotte, emerging in a more peaceful state.
Robin goes with a group of UHC members to Norwich to collect donations for the church. While there, she mistakenly responds to somebody yelling "Robin!" (actually a child referring to a stuffed bird), which is noticed by another church member and possibly compromises her identity. Right after this, Emily Pirbright, who is also with the group, runs away. Robin finds her in a toy shop, and has a talk with her before returning with her to the group because Emily has decided not to run away from the church, being still indoctrinated with church doctrine even if being at odds with the leaders. However, Emily tells Robin that she is certain that Daiyu did not drown, and she believes her to still be alive.
After luring Will into the Retreat Room (for "spirit bonding") Robin breaks the news of his mother's death which he never received with his letters being censored by the church principals. At the ceremony for the apparition of the Drowned Prophet, Robin gets dragged under in the baptismal pool and nearly drowns. Jonathan Wace insists this is because she made the prophet angry by her behaviour with Will and as punishment she is locked in a wooden box for eight hours. After being let out, Robin is sent to look after an ill child called Jacob who she thinks is dying. That evening, Robin, pretending to need the bathroom, runs for the blind spot where Strike is waiting, according to plan as Robin had not written back that week and the rock was gone. Strike beats up Robin's pursuers and escapes with her in the car to a nearby lodge he checked into earlier. They then report the dying Jacob to the local police.
Later that week, Robin is invited by the Metropolitan Police for a voluntary interview in which learns that she has been accused of child sexual abuse by the church. Strike and Robin continue to update Colin Edensor and interview former members of the church including Carrie Woods (as Cherie Gittins is now known) who insists Daiyu Wace drowned when she took her to the beach. Carrie commits suicide hours later.
Days later, Will turns up at the agency's office with his daughter, having escaped the farm. Will intends to hand himself to the police once Lin, who was transferred from the farm after miscarrying, is safe. He reveals that Jacob died a few days after Robin's escape. Pat and her husband Dennis take care of Will and Qing at their house while Midge and grateful client Tash find Lin at the church's medical centre near London and try to release her. Robin arranges an interview between Will and fellow former UHC member Flora Brewster, who convinces Will that the Drowned Prophet, who he still fears, is not real when she reveals the churches "Divine Secrets" without dying.
Strike and Robin then discuss their findings with all their police contacts. The next day, Robin interviews Carrie Woods's ex-boyfriend in prison, confirming both Robin's and Strike's suspicions regarding Daiyu Wace's death. He remembers Carrie, mostly when in a drunken state, revealing that the drowning incident was merely a cover-up, and he agrees to testify. Back at the office, Strike breaks the news the police have raided Chapman Farm and the Church's Birmingham centre, which was used as a base for trafficking surplus babies, born to UHC members, for adoption. Robin then goes to the church's London temple to pursue Becca. Meanwhile Strike confronts Abigail Glover where he deduces that she murdered her stepsister Daiyu, jealous of the attention she got from her parents, chopped up her body to feed to the pigs in a makeshift pen in the woods and faked her drowning. He also deduces that it was she who owned the Polaroid camera used to take the pig mask images. At the temple, Robin finds Mazu Wace who then tries to kill her with a gun, before Midge intervenes.
In the epilogue, it is revealed that Jonathan Wace has been arrested trying to drive across the United States border into Mexico, Mazu insists that she is still the mother of the Drowned Prophet despite the evidence to the contrary and Becca remains faithful to the now discredited UHC. Will is reunited with Lin and his family and has renamed his daughter Sally in honour of his late mother. Strike has one last meeting with Charlotte's sister Amelia where they discuss her late sister who blamed everyone in her suicide note. Just before Robin leaves for a trip with her boyfriend Ryan Murphy, Strike confesses his love for her while discussing Charlotte's suicide and his meeting with Amelia.
The Running Grave sold 50,925 copies in its first week on sale in the UK, placing it first on the UK Official Top 50 book sales list. [2]
Joan Smith, writing in The Times , says the book reveals Rowling's "extraordinary resilience" to remain in the public eye after suffering "vicious abuse", and also shows her "intense sympathy for the underdog". [3] Jake Kerridge from The Daily Telegraph rated the book 3 out of 5 stars, calling it "some of her most gripping writing yet" but asking "did it have to be so long?" [1] Laura Wilson, writing in The Guardian , says it could have had some "judicious trimming" but was still "an immersive, and, for the most part, riveting read." [4]
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Cormoran Strike is a series of crime fiction novels written by British author J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The story chronicles the cases of the fictional British private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott. Seven novels in the series have so far been published. Rowling said after the third book that she had plans for at least another ten. The seventh novel, titled The Running Grave, was released on 26 September 2023.
Lethal White is the fourth novel in the Cormoran Strike series, written by J. K. Rowling and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The novel was released on 18 September 2018.
Troubled Blood is the fifth novel in the Cormoran Strike series, written by J. K. Rowling and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The novel was released on 15 September 2020.
The Ink Black Heart is a crime fiction novel written by J. K. Rowling, and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It was published 30 August 2022. It is the sixth and the longest novel in the Cormoran Strike series.