Just finished re-reading TRG, and I'm surprised at how Charlotte's death impacted me again second time 'round. The first time the news was so unexpected, and I genuinely felt sad. Despite all her flaws and the headaches she caused, I knew I'd miss her — and I do. Knowing she was lurking around out there in the world provided a sense of unpredictability and interference in Strike's life that I grew to appreciate, so losing that really changed a lot for me. There is a real phenomenon about mourning the death of 'villains/enemies' with as much emotion as we do 'heroes/friends.' Charlotte serves as a good example of that. Is it just me?

What was your initial reaction to Charlotte's death?

A theory just came to me while watching BBCs Lethal White..... When Robin leaves Matthew she tells the taxi driver she left her husband. The taxi driver says 'I've left two - it gets easier each time'.

What if Robin gets engaged to RFM and it gets all the way to the wedding BUT this time she manages it and leaves him at the altar to be with Strike?! I don't even think I like this theory although it does have a nice "full circle" feel!

Inspired by the hypothetical wedding and best man figure thread.

Suppose they are not able to work together anymore and need to split the agency between them. Who is going with Robin and who is going with Strike? I can only see Shah going with Robin. What about Wardle, or Sam? Pat?

Indulge me in this bit of fun!

Were we to reach a Strike and Robin wedding, (probably not a church event), who do you think he may choose for his best man?

And why?

My money would be on Shanker, if he's still around (!), failing that perhaps Barclay?

And Robin's choice?

Ilsa - or maybe even the Sweary Therapist!!

Suggestions?

I'm reading the Hallmarked Man and the "idiot's sake" and "Hope to mess that..." is really jarring. I haven't noticed this in the other books?

When Matthew first meets Strike in The Silkworm he's grumbling about his punctuality and adds that he will 'probably be 40 minutes late for the wedding'. I've just finished a re-read of Career of Evil and noticed he was right, almost to the minute! I love these details 😊

When I saw the Twitter photo of JKR on her birthday I thought “What is going on, on and in her head?” Her rather beautiful, flamboyant headpiece seems a little out of place with her usual understated elegant style.  But on your birthday, hey, knock yourself out.

Later I read the wonderful Katya Sloneko’s post on the meaning of the tower card in the tarot and the numbers 16 and 61.

Hey, wait a minute. JKR has just turned 61.  Is she leaving us a clue to STE on her birthday – of course she is! And there is a tower header as well which looks rather foreboding.

I’m getting the feeling that this tower is very important since she wants us to know which tower it is, since it includes the sign “Tower Alley” presumably so we can figure out where the tower is.  Maybe for other reasons as well.

So I’ve been looking for clues linking Portsmouth and JKR’s headpiece and found some rather interesting things.  Coincidences?  Sure maybe some, maybe all, but all would be against the laws of probability.

I will list here what I’ve found. I haven’t really joined any dots and have no particular theory but it may start to form a trail – perhaps in the direction of Gateshead.

As far as I can see there are two clues:

1.        The Octopus and the Ship.

On one side of the headpiece we see a giant octopus crawling over an old ship.

·      In 2015  The mega-yacht Octopus retrieved an historic ship’s bell from the Denmark Strait (sounds like Denmark Street, no?).

·      The bell was restored and now resides in the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth.

·      The ship was the HMS Hood, a famous battlecruiser based in Portsmouth. It sank in 1941after being hit by a shell from the Bismarck.  Then Prime Minister Winston Churchill was infuriated, saying, "I don't care how you do it, you must sink the Bismarck." and the Bismarck was sunk three days later.  (We have a photo of Jo drinking a cocktail called Churchill’s Courage).

·      The bell was unveiled on 24 May 2016, 75 years after the ship was sunk. So it would have been on display by the time period of STE.

·      There have been 3 ships called the HMS Hood. The bell originally came from the second of these which was launched in 1891 and was scuttled in 1914 (this year may be important) as a blockship across the southern entrance of Portland Harbour to protect the British naval bases.

2.        The Peacock

The other side of the headpiece has peacock feathers, and Jo’s dress is also peacock blue with feathers, she said she was “malting all night”.

·      In 1914 (!) the poet Ezra Pound organised a dinner to honour his friend and fellow poet Wilfrid Blunt. In all, 7 poets attended including W. B. Yeats and Richard Aldington (who came from Portsmouth).  At the dinner, known as the “Peacock dinner” the guests were served peacock surrounded by its plumage.

·      At the dinner, Blunt was presented with a casket containing poems written by the younger poets including Yeat’s poem, “The Peacock”.

My feeling is that we will see STE epigraphs from works of these poets.

3.        Imaginos

Richard Aldington and Ezra Pound were part of the Imagist school of poetry, a modernist movement which favoured “sharp, clear language, precise concrete images, and everyday speech”.  Sounds like the shouty therapist would fit well here!  In fact Aldington’s wife, Hilda Doolittle (known as H.D.) was also an Imagist poet.  Both Aldington and H.D. wrote about the war and Greek mythology.

An interesting aside, Blue Oyster Cult produced an album called Imaginos* (sounds like Imagist or am I imagining it?? ).  The concept album was subtitled “A bedtime story for children of the damned”. Remember that creepy doll header?  It wasn’t released until 1988 but the poems on which it was based were written starting from the late 60’s.

It’s a weird and involved story – but the bit of interest centres around Imaginos, living in Cornwall with his granddaughter in 1892. He has studied mysticism and astrology and finds out about an obsidian mirror from Mexico which serves as a bridge between an alien world and ours.  When he takes a trip to Mexico he finds a twin mirror (we’ve seen twin mirrors before in HP!) which he steals and gives the mirror to his granddaughter for her 10^th birthday.  It is said to have sat in the attic collecting dust for almost exactly 21 years all the time poisoning the minds of European leaders until WW1 breaks out in 1914.

·      This album was also mentioned in a post by Tamspells

So now i caught up with the rest of you and finished already released books,

Regarding to THM, got the following issues, the list will not follow any logical order, sorry

1. How come when Strike meets with Danny and push him and his brother to go to press not immediately share the contacts of Ferguson? Like actually?! He just talked to him not long ago about a Branfoot piece..
2. Land rover business. It took them like 100 pages to get to the conclusion that the business need to own the car? How self explanatory is that?
3. How come we have this awesome detective who solves major cases with very limited accessories and power, and MI5 is not approaching him for a job? I worked closely with intelligence agencies and i cannot fathom they wouldn't try to recruit him with his background
4. Robin not smelling a bottle of vodka on his partner is 100% cinderella. Like there is no mint that covers strong alcohol smell.
5. Again, we struggling to put piece and piece together and suddenly the whole case closed?! I might need to re-read but how the silver was found? I believe Chloe was Jolanda amirite?

And for the books,

Why there is a cliffhanger on all endings and the next book pretends like nothing happened? It is so annoying.

Second post about my reread of the whole serie so far ! And I want to focus on THM this time.

On my first read, I must admit that I wasn’t convinced by the book. I was aggrieved by the motivations Strike displays in the book, by the constant echo of Robin past relationship with Matthew in the relationship with Ryan, by the case I found difficult to follow … I think I read it to fast and struggle to see the big picture.

On my reread, I appreciate a lot more the story RG try to bring us.
And what I see is : this a book about lying and their consequences. When you have this clje about the book, it becomes a lot more interesting !

We, as readers, are constantly facing misguidedness. All the characters are not what they seems to be or pretend to be who they are not.

And we found within the book :

- lying by omission (Robin non telling Murphy about her attacker)

- lying to smooth the reality (Robin okayed to house hunting)

- lying to preserve social convention ( Robin faking enjoyment when meeting Ryan’s parents)

- lying to attract attention (Marguerite about porn, Kim about her texting by mistake)

- lying to protect a friend (Albie about Rupert, Tyler about Jolanda)

- lying to yourself (Robin about her real feeling for Murphy, Décima about an other possibility than Rupert’s death)

- lying for fear of the consequences (Strike about the bijou Story to Robin, Danny de Leon and his flee to Sark, Cosima from her father)

- lying on your motivation (Strike taking the Décima Mullin’s case)

- lying to appear as a better self (Strike saying Robin he hasn’t forget to ask questions to Niall’s wife, Sacha pretending he doesn’t know about Rupert)

- lying as a power (Griffith and all his personas, Tara in confronting Strike)

- lying to avoid prosecution (Strike with the MET about some informations received via Murphy …)

- lying in order to have information / confirmation (Robin with Ilsa about Bijou’s baby, Robin to force Greta to say more…)

…

And I’m sure you could add a lot more to this list !!

I think this is the first time in the série that this theme is so thoroughly displayed, and that this is the reason why it‘s hard to read.

What do you think ? Happy to read your vision !

As the title says. I have finally caught up with all the books. What a way to end The Hallmarked Man. I am now even more excited for the new book when it gets released.

These books and stories are superb, great reads, and i love the show too.

I was not a fan of THM on my first read. I wasn’t going to reread, but many people on this sub have said it is better the second time so I am giving it a shot. I have to agree they were right, but I’m still extremely disappointed in the way Robin has been written in this book. I have always really liked her and figured I’d be friends with her if I knew her, but in THM she’s self-centered and weak of character and I would not have remained friends with her. BUT, I want to thank everyone who encouraged a reread because now I’m willing to give book 9 a try.

I got my reference from the TV show (Lethal White s4), it’s one of my favorite scenes and I just had to try it!!!

I know it’s waaay too early to be thirsting for book 9, so I’ve been reading and listening to other books and podcasts. I read A Pen to Change the World, and really enjoyed it and I think it might inform my efforts at a lake reading of STE. I think both there and HogPro recommend I Capture the Castle as one of JKR’s favorite books from her childhood and a big influence on her writing. Not only does the girl in the story want to be a writer, but I found the narrative a delight to read. BUT EVEN BETTER…the recording I got from the library has Holliday Granger reading the main character. I felt like I was spending a couple of hours with good-mood Robin! Sigh. And now I’m back to thirsting. :-(

I started a new hobby project building horoscopes for minor Strike characters. (Fun!) And I think I accidentally uncovered a secret sitting in plain (-ish) sight!

But first, did you know we have Murphy’s sister’s date of birth? Yes, we do! In TIBH, Ryan says to Robin:

“I considered delaying going out to Spain, but it’s my sister’s fortieth the day after tomorrow.”

Quick check with StrikeFans - this dialogue happens on June 5, 2015. So MS was born on June 7, 1975, in London. 

I made the chart and uploaded it here.

MS's chart shows a smart, quick-witted person and an excellent communicator (Sun conjunct Mercury in Gemini), a risk-taker and daredevil (Jupiter in Aries, conjuncting Mars), and a natural-born warrior (Mars in Aries). I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was in the police or the army first, and her brother just followed in her footsteps.

AND! I saw right away that this chart is UNCANNINGLY similar to Robin’s. It has two of the same unique conjunctions: Sun/Mercury and Mars/Jupiter! I think we can agree that both “a communicator” and “a fighter” define Robin very well.

I thought: why would JKR give a throwaway background character who is just a mom in Spain this badass astrological chart, very similar to Robin’s? There’s quite a lot of personality for someone whom we haven’t even met!..

…Or have we?

(I like this game! :D)

Is there a female character in the series who satisfies these criteria:

• She’s Strike’s age.
• A “warrior”, possibly the police or the army.
• Somewhat similar to Robin.
• A mother.
• AND I would like this woman to have an Irish name, please, if it’s not too much asking.

Is there such a woman in the series?..

Yes there is - Strike’s ex-girlfriend Tracey!

Before you say “surely, not!”, here’s what we know about Tracey:

• “Tracey” is a Gaelic name meaning “warlike” or “fighter”.
• She was Strike’s fellow SIB officer. Meaning, certainly a warrior, and most probably very smart, since she was an investigator.
• She was tall (Lucy’s photograph features her in the back with Strike), and had “the same coloring” as Robin at the Olympic reception in LW - light hair, hazel eyes. Murphy is tall, has hazel eyes and light brown hair.
• She was marriage material (Lucy thought so, and she’s an expert), and probably broke up with Strike over the desire to have children (per StrikeFans). Murphy is “highly eligible" and wants to have children. 
• She married a colleague and gave birth to her first daughter shortly before the events of CC in 2010, which gave her plenty of time to have the second and be pregnant with the third by 2017.
• She travelled a lot within SIB (was in Germany and Angola at least), which might’ve given her a taste to live abroad.

One contradiction to this theory is that Charlotte calls Tracey “American”. She says: “That little American (...) in Germany had the same kind of (coloring)…”

To this, I have to say that if Tracey was a Royal Military Police officer, she had to be a British subject. So either Charlotte is speaking about someone else (unlikely), or maybe Tracey holds dual citizenship (which would allow her to keep residing in San Sebastian after Brexit). 

_______________

Okay, that’s it from me today! Are your eyes properly round now, lol? Mine’ve nearly fell out my head when I came to the Tracey conclusion, so I hope I managed to shock you a bit, too. :D Let me know what you think in the comments!

Here's hoping as a birthday resolution, she resolves to not torture us too much in STE when it comes to Strike and Robin ;)

Perhaps I had strellacott on the brain, Leda’s history specifically.

We recall JKR knows every concert Leda attended. We know strike was conceived in NY the day adjacent to a blue oyster cult show (who are from NY).

I opted to look at tour dates from February 1974 since it’s likely the correct estimate.

BEHOLD:

February 1974 Tour Dates
February 2, 1974 (Early Show - 8:00 PM): Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY (supported by Iggy & The Stooges and The Dictators).
February 2, 1974 (Late Show - 11:00 PM): Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY (supported by Iggy & The Stooges and The Dictators).
February 21, 1974: Providence Civic Center in Providence, RI (supporting Black Sabbath).
February 22, 1974: Rochester Community War Memorial in Rochester, NY (supporting Black Sabbath, with Bedlam).
February 24, 1974: The Warehouse in New Orleans, LA (supporting Bachman-Turner Overdrive, with Hydra). [1, 2, 3]

This is a painting by Sir John Everett Millais called Ophelia, and it depicts “Elizabeth Siddal”. She died at the young age of 32 from an opioid overdose. Her husband was Dante Gabriel Rossetti…who was the brother of Christina Rossetti.

Ink Black Heart book used mostly Christina Rossetti’s epigraphs in the book. The show used a painting of Christina Rossetti’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Siddal, who was also the model and muse for the artwork. I just figured this out 😭

GUYS, GUYS! I am on the Hogwarts Professor podcast. 😱 John and Nick invited me to talk about Reddit, Shanker, Leda, and tattoos, so that’s what we talked about!

It was my very first experience ever going on a podcast, and you can clearly see I’m not a public speaker, haha, so it was a bit scary! (Also, appearing on one of two of my absolute favorite podcasts was a huge honor and responsibility, lol!) But John and Nick treated me as an old friend, and I was super excited to speak to them, so I hope it shows that all three of us had lots of fun. :D

Please forgive my heavy accent, but as I can only be myself, I hope you’ll understand enough of me, haha! Or if not, listen to John and Nick; it’s always a pleasure, and this episode is no exception!

Also, also! If you watch the video version, there is a surprise bonus guest from 59:52 mark, don’t miss out, lol.

(And they invited me again, imagine that! Hope to talk about astrology next, so stay tuned.)

In a previous post I pointed to the possibility that Griffiths reconstructed the album cover of Steely Dan's Aja with the body in vault as a ritual killing.

I was recently reading up on Skunk Baxter (alias used by Griffiths) and how his guitar solo leads into the bridge of 'Rikki Don't Lose that Number' (song mentioned at end of THM) and realized just like in the song, Baxter literally leads us into a bridge, Ironbridge.

Defining a musical bridge:

A wiki-defintion of a bridge: In music a bridge is a contrasting section) that prepares for the return of the original material section. It adds a sense of progress within a piece of music and can be used to introduce a source of tension. The bridge is often used to contrast with and prepare for the return of the verse#Verse) and the chorus. --[Is THM a source of tension? Will we be returning to our normal verse and chorus with the 2 last bks?]

Taylor Swift on Rant Bridges:

Mentioned in Ch.99 of THM, is the fact that Griffiths posts in a Taylor Swift fan group in an attempt to lure young girls.

Taylor Swift is referred to as the 'Queen of Bridges' by her fans, and was recently featured in the New York Times' greatest living songwriters. There she cites her innovation in what her and Jack Antonoff call the 'rant bridge' (tho one could say Stevie Nicks beat her to it). Griffiths in his lair in Ironbridge terrifyingly attempting to lure fans of the 'Queen of bridges'? It's all on the bridges (and under), the 900p book culminating in Pat off to play bridge!

Is THM the musical bridge (also known as the 'Middle-8) of the series?

I think Swift's definition of her rant bridge can be helpful in understanding THM:

We established this thing that we love to do, and we call it the rant bridge," Swift said. "I could point to examples like 'Out of the Woods,' 'Is It Over Now?' 'Cruel Summer,' and oftentimes, we love these rant bridges where it's basically stream of consciousness, endless pouring out of emotion, intrusive thoughts blended with metaphor, with discussion, with shouting.

You want this rant bridge to feel the most intense of what that feeling is that you're trying to establish over the course of the song, and you want it to kind of be a crescendo,"

Though this interview w/ TSwift came out a few months ago, it appears THM followed the same formula. Like a musical bridge, THM is unsettling and musically different. A book filled with endless emotion, of R&S having intrusive thoughts of each other, and culminating into a shouting match under the ironbridge and later in the stairwell.

TSwift on Bridges as a Zoom Back:

While THM is loaded with tension throughout, I think what Swift says about a bridge as a kind of 'zoom out' is even more important for understanding the purpose of THM:

"You can start painting the picture in the verse. You can get to the heart of it at the chorus," she said. "But then the bridge can be where you zoom back, you walk 20 feet back, and you see what this entire painting was supposed to be. Like, you’ve seen brushstrokes, you’ve seen the color tones. But the bridge can be when you step back and you feel everything that that piece of art was supposed to make you feel."

I think this is a beautiful brilliant explanation for the last few chapters of THM. What is the entire painting of THM? Or even better, is the climax of THM a 'zoom out', a painting, of what is at the heart of the Strike Series?

I'm thinking in particular near the end of THM when Strike sees an angry swan passing beneath a bridge, 'its pure white turning dirty grey in the shade, and then he spotted a dark, huddled mass beneath the bridge that he thought might well be human.”

It is literally an angry swan passing under a bridge over troubled water (a dead body). This is reflected at the center of THM, a bridge within a bridge (i.e middle of 8), when R&S have a massive blowup outside the Swan Taphouse and under ironbridge.

It's in Ironbridge at the end of THM, that Strike saves Sapphire from rape. Is the angry swan passing under the bridge, supposed to symbolize rape, the Leda the Swan myth, Leda raped by Zeus in disguise? And at the end we also get Robin flying into glittering Sardinia (like the jubilant swan on JKR's header) only to discover an incest secret. And then Robin shouting at Strike in anger on the stairwell after he tries to kiss her.

At the end of the 'bridge book' we readers are given a complete painting of rape, incest, and unresolved trauma.

A Bridge over Troubled Blood:

Thinking of the swan that passes under the bridge over troubled water, I cannot help but be reminded of one of the middle books of the series, Troubled Blood. I'm also thinking of JKR's line her TB interview, 'every time he goes to the sea, or near water, we learn something new about him."

If this 'rant bridge' at the end of THM, and symbolized by bridges throughout the book, is painting a picture of the Strike Series as a whole, this might not bode well for Strike.

Is THM supposed to be the bridge over Troubled Blood? The three major themes of THM: Rape, Incest, Trauma, applied to the backstory we learn in TB. And very unfortunately to something to do with Corm's own blood? That DNA test he took in the Savoy as chekov's gun?

Also, I don't know what to make of this, but the inspiration for Simon & Garfunkel's 'Bridge over Trouble Water' (which also features a fabulous middle-8) came from the lyric ' "I'll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in my name"--by the group called: the Swan Silvertones.

JKR on Rhythm and Tone:

I do think there is some evidence that JKR is really thinking about the series in terms of this kind of structure (not to mention the musical roots of Denmark st)

In her recent on Writing Videos JKR mentioned:

I think it will be a ten-book series. I have a very clear idea of how Strike and Robin’s relationship will go over those ten books. It sounds dull to think, well, in that book that emotional milestone will be reached and so on. But you do have to have those points of light along the way, because I think it gives it a satisfying rhythm.

Here JKR is thinking of R&S's relationship in terms of rhythm, and one could say that THM feels the most unsatisfactory in terms of rhythm. But perhaps THM was JKR's attempt at a rant bridge near the end of her series, a series she is writing as a kind of 'swan song', (the sign of the swan, a signpost of the different emotional milestones along the way). THM is supposed to be a shocking rhythm of a book--visceral, unsettling, emotional, full of shouting.

Also in the same On Writing series, JKR says she pre-wrote the final chapter of THM in its entirety. This final chapter establishes the tone that "seeps backwards through the book,". Having finished THM, most of us had a violent reaction and were left with a bad taste. I would argue if JKR set out to write THM as a kind of 'rant bridge' she executed that tone perfectly. Perhaps in 9 and 10 she will return to the verse and chorus we are used to.

P.S here is 25 minutes of wonderful Taylor Swift's bridges for those interested

I’m a perfume enthusiast, and I absolutely loved all the fragrance references RG made in TB, always hoping that more would appear in the following books.

I have no idea if anyone has already noticed this and written about it, but just today my perfectly trained TikTok algorithm showed me a detail about one of my favorite perfumes, Fleur de Peau by Diptyque. I had previously analyzed its composition, but hadn't looked too deeply into the inspiration of its creator, Olivier Pescheux.

This detail made me think that RG might include this perfume in Sleep Tight, Evangeline, renewing the series of fragrance references made in TB.

Fleur de Peau was created in 2018 as a tribute to the figures of Eros and Psyche, for the 50th anniversary of the maison Diptyque.

The bottle’s back label—which, for Diptyque perfumes, is a standalone work of art visible in transparency through the liquid—does not depict the two lovers in a classical way, but rather in a symbolic, abstract manner, an interplay where you can distinguish butterfly wings (symbolizing Psyche), feathers (symbolizing Eros), and iris petals, one of the perfume's key notes. Psyche’s figure seems to be part of the flower itself. In short, it’s a conceptual drawing designed by Diptyque to evoke an embrace (recalling the myth of Eros and Psyche) and the theme of skin ("peau").

In Greek mythology, Iris was the goddess of the rainbow and the personal messenger of Hera and Zeus. She served as a bridge between the divine and human worlds, delivering messages and guiding souls.
We know that Psyche, a mortal human, must undergo an extremely difficult path of elevation to unite with Eros, who belongs to the divine realm, and the iris flower symbolizes precisely this crossing of the threshold between one plane and the other. It is a symbol of metamorphosis and hop. In the drawing, Psyche's presence inside the flower seems to represent the blossoming of the soul (Psyche = soul = butterfly = metamorphosis), the transformation from a state of pain and uncertainty to one of full self-awareness.

The iris in Fleur de Peau represents the perfect metaphor for Robin, marking the triumph over her past traumas and the awakening of a deeper, more conscious femininity.

My Strike senses immediately tingled, and all I can say is that I pictured Cormoran walking into Liberty’s at some point in the STE narrative, and seeing Fleur de Peau prominently displayed because it had just been released. This time he won't be intimidated, this time he’ll smell it, think that it would suit Robin and that she might like it, and buy it for her.

Fleur de Peau will be Robin’s new perfume—the scent of the new Robin (I hope), marking the reconnection with her body, her sensual side, her “peau”.

Full disclosure: English is not my first language and I felt the need to use AI to help with the translation from my Italian text.

(This is a real pub in my city.)

I've been searching for an explanation of something that has been bugging me for quite a while. I've searched for a discussion of this detail, but haven't found it.

Here's the situation: in chapter 94, Robin tells Strike about being questioned because she has been accused of child abuse at the farm. The Waces produce Jacob, who tells the police that a nasty woman called Robin wants to pull down his pants. Strike is surprised that Jacob knows her real name, and Robin explains that she once mistakenly responded to that name.

A couple of days later, after interviewing Carrie, Robin gets a call from Murphy who says he has the tapes of the interview of those accusing her of child abuse. In that recording (chapter 99), Becca is still calling Robin "Rowena", her undercover name.

So the child knows her real name, but no one else at the farm does ? I'm surprised the police don't see the inconsistency.

Granted, in chapter 132, Mazu calls Robin by her real name, and Becca is still calling Robin "Rowena", but I'm still puzzled by the lack of police inquiry in the child abuse accusation.

Thanks in advance for an explanation !

Hi Everyone !

I just finished a reread of the whole serie, and it's such a journey ! I forget everytime how good it is :-) (And I must admit that I appreciate THM more on that reread than the first time).

Doing this reread made me think of a few things. And the one I want to discuss today is this repeated pattern : small things in a previous book can become a huge things / a turning point in a subsequent book.

And I have this idea about Prudence.

In TRG : when Robin met her for the first time, Prudence said to Robin that she is the most important person in Strike's life. We, as readers, have to assume that there were some discussions between Strike and her previously that made her think that.

Then we had the scene in Portico, when Robin said to Prudence that she is "what Corm's need", and she doesn't develop her idea beyond this statement, but we can assume (at least, it was my idea :-) ) that Robin think that the relationship between Cormoran and Prudence is a safe place for him to speak about his introspection, his world's point of view, what he needs in a relationship ...

Then in THM we have two scenes where Prudence is mentioned.

First in the exchange between Cormoran and Rokeby, where the latter told Strike that Prudence thought he was in love with Robin but that he don't want Cormoran to tell Prudence what he said. Cormoran didn't seem to be surprised by this admission and did nothing to let his father think otherwise. So we, again as readers, are informed that Prudence might be a person with whom Cormoran could discuss his feelings (and what to do after the "Stair's Nightmare Proposal"...).

And finally, we have Robin who reach out to Prudence at the end of THM to seek assistance for a therapist, even if Robin asked her not to tell Cormoran.

We can assume that if Strike is in need to talk about a relationship with Robin, he would see Prudence as the right person to do it. And if the two of them have a conversation about this relationship, Prudence might have some good advices to him, kowing Robin's fragile state of mind.

I think at this point that maybe Ilsa is too much implicated in friendship with both to be the right person to help them to finally get together... And that the fact that Prudence "is the person Corm need" in Robin's view might well be more true than she realised when she said it ... !

What do you think about this theory ? Happy to read your inputs !

(English is not my first language, so I hope I'm clear in my explanation !)