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4.48 AVERAGE
4.48 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
I always look forward to each installment of the Cormoron Strike series and the 7th edition was on par, though I’ll note, it’s not as good as most of its predecessors. As they say in London—coulda done with a bit of editing. Parts dragged, there were A LOT of characters to keep track of, and the end was a kind of out there. Not very believable to be honest. So, four stars rather than five. That being said, the end was a twist, I didn’t see it coming and the callback to a certain movie from the 90s (no blatant spoiler here) was a good one.
So let’s dive in! Strike and Robin are hired by Sir Colin Edensor to bust his brainwashed son, Will, out of the United Humanitarian Church— think Scientology but minus the aliens and plus some prophets. It’s complete with some Tom Cruise style celebrities and a load of “beliefs” designed to divest the devotees of their life savings and line the pockets of church principals Papa J and Mama Mazu.
Robin ventures undercover into the bowels of the UHC’s Chapman Farm to get close enough to Will to convince him to leave or to dig up something on the church to bring it down and disband it.
As cults go, the UHC is pretty heinous. Its entire religion is based around the prophet Daiyu, Papa J and Mama Mazu’s daughter who drowned years previously. Strike and Robin have tons of questions about Daiyu’s death… but will they be able to uncover the truth and destroy the cult?
Read on to find out!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
So let’s dive in! Strike and Robin are hired by Sir Colin Edensor to bust his brainwashed son, Will, out of the United Humanitarian Church— think Scientology but minus the aliens and plus some prophets. It’s complete with some Tom Cruise style celebrities and a load of “beliefs” designed to divest the devotees of their life savings and line the pockets of church principals Papa J and Mama Mazu.
Robin ventures undercover into the bowels of the UHC’s Chapman Farm to get close enough to Will to convince him to leave or to dig up something on the church to bring it down and disband it.
As cults go, the UHC is pretty heinous. Its entire religion is based around the prophet Daiyu, Papa J and Mama Mazu’s daughter who drowned years previously. Strike and Robin have tons of questions about Daiyu’s death… but will they be able to uncover the truth and destroy the cult?
Read on to find out!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book killed me, it was torture because of how well it is written. I will recommend this series to everyone, but it is NOT for the weak.
I went into this book with pretty high expectations. This is one of the best reviewed books in the Strike series and hugely popular on the Cormoran Strike subreddit as well. For many, this is the best book in the series thus far. I really enjoyed it, but it didn't reach those heights for me and my top two in the series are still Troubled Blood and Career of Evil.
This is an intense and expansive novel and the first one in the series in which the Strike and Ellacott team are not investigating one specific murder. This volume sees them investigating a cult with over 10,000 members, and includes investigation not just of murder but of child abuse, sexual abuse, extortion, embezzlement, and nearly every other crime you can think of. We also have the usual myriad subplots involving Strike and Robin's personal lives and other, minor cases that the team is investigating at the same time.
As always, it was expertly written and engaging with a huge web of complicated characters to follow. As always, I especially loved the interview scenes (my favorite part of this series, honestly) as well as any scene in which Strike and Robin were bouncing ideas off of each other trying to work it all out. I really do love the investigation part of these books. I would say that Robin is pretty much the lead character in this book, as she goes deep undercover for a large portion of it and goes into the cult itself. I adore Robin and at this point she is pretty firmly in my top five favorite fictional characters. Seeing her strength, intelligence, resilience, and compassion in this book was just fantastic.
Why doesn't it go full five stars for me? I got a little bit bogged down at about the 300-400 page mark and actually took a long break in the middle of this book and read a bunch of other things before resuming. The portion within the cult was tense and freaky, but also not my favorite and it went on for a really long time with barely any movement. I needed a break from it while reading. Some of this may be influenced by the fact that I had a friend and colleague who joined a cult (she's still in it, unfortunately) and it was all hitting a bit close to home.
Things definitely picked up as soon as Robin escaped and I devoured the last third in a frenzy. I thought the ending/final reveal was brave (I was afraid it was going to be a cop-out). I wanted to see someone punch Jonathan Wace right in his smug face (Becca too) but we can't have everything, and it was a realistic bittersweet ending.
The personal stuff was pretty good. Poor Uncle Ted has dementia. Charlotte killed herself and I'm honestly just relieved that this plot is over because I absolutely hated Charlotte and seeing her crop up again in every book. Strike and Robin take a teeny tiny step forward in the final chapter of this book, in terms of the longest slow burn romance ever. I've been reading a lot romance lately and they seem so quaint compared to the other books I've been reading. Speak up! Tell each other what you feel!
This is an intense and expansive novel and the first one in the series in which the Strike and Ellacott team are not investigating one specific murder. This volume sees them investigating a cult with over 10,000 members, and includes investigation not just of murder but of child abuse, sexual abuse, extortion, embezzlement, and nearly every other crime you can think of. We also have the usual myriad subplots involving Strike and Robin's personal lives and other, minor cases that the team is investigating at the same time.
As always, it was expertly written and engaging with a huge web of complicated characters to follow. As always, I especially loved the interview scenes (my favorite part of this series, honestly) as well as any scene in which Strike and Robin were bouncing ideas off of each other trying to work it all out. I really do love the investigation part of these books. I would say that Robin is pretty much the lead character in this book, as she goes deep undercover for a large portion of it and goes into the cult itself. I adore Robin and at this point she is pretty firmly in my top five favorite fictional characters. Seeing her strength, intelligence, resilience, and compassion in this book was just fantastic.
Why doesn't it go full five stars for me? I got a little bit bogged down at about the 300-400 page mark and actually took a long break in the middle of this book and read a bunch of other things before resuming. The portion within the cult was tense and freaky, but also not my favorite and it went on for a really long time with barely any movement. I needed a break from it while reading. Some of this may be influenced by the fact that I had a friend and colleague who joined a cult (she's still in it, unfortunately) and it was all hitting a bit close to home.
Things definitely picked up as soon as Robin escaped and I devoured the last third in a frenzy. I thought the ending/final reveal was brave (I was afraid it was going to be a cop-out). I wanted to see someone punch Jonathan Wace right in his smug face (Becca too) but we can't have everything, and it was a realistic bittersweet ending.
The personal stuff was pretty good. Poor Uncle Ted has dementia. Charlotte killed herself and I'm honestly just relieved that this plot is over because I absolutely hated Charlotte and seeing her crop up again in every book. Strike and Robin take a teeny tiny step forward in the final chapter of this book, in terms of the longest slow burn romance ever. I've been reading a lot romance lately and they seem so quaint compared to the other books I've been reading. Speak up! Tell each other what you feel!
I can’t tell whether the author either really hates David Bowie or really loves David Bowie.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
How can a book be so long and go so fast?? The story and pacing and writing are perfection. I enjoyed every minute of this 34 hour audiobook.