The Hallmarked Man by Robert GalbraithMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am torn about what I think of this book. I love the characters. Strike and Robin are both great characters: complex emotionally and intellectually, not stereotypical, have good moral centers without being overly idealized caricatures. I enjoy ever moment these two are investigating. The writing is always great: the building of tension, the dialogue, the care of character development for minor characters, the avoidance of tropes. (And the audio narration is some of the best there is. Kudos to Robert Glenister)
But I had two main issues. First the core mystery was too convoluted. The cases are always complex and intricate – that’s what sustains the length of these novels. But there were too man moving pieces here and I sometimes got a bit lost about which case was which or the relevance of a particular witness.
Second, Strike and Robin. I love them as characters, I love them as detecting partners. As star-crossed lovers, they are annoying! There is a lot of internal monologue by each character making unwarranted assumptions about the motivations or thoughts of the other character that then predictably creates drama and misunderstanding between them. There were many times I wanted to reach through the book and slap the pair of them. This has always been a part of these novels, but the volume was turned way up here. Which in some ways that I can’t reveal without spoilers, makes some sense. But it had a tendency to overwhelm things.
This is the weakest, I think, of the Strike series. If I could it would be 3.5/5 not 4/5, but I still enjoyed the book even with these flaws. So 4/5 it is.
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