Lethal White is the fourth book in the Cormoran Strike series from the international bestselling author Robert Galbraith.

“I seen a kid killed…He strangled it, up by the horse.”

When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike’s office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic.

Trying to get to the bottom of Billy’s story, Strike and Robin Ellacott—once his assistant, now a partner in the agency—set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside.

And during this labyrinthine investigation, Strike’s own life is far from straightforward: his newfound fame as a private eye means he can no longer operate behind the scenes as he once did. Plus, his relationship with his former assistant is more fraught than it ever has been—Robin is now invaluable to Strike in the business, but their personal relationship is much, much trickier than that.

The most epic Robert Galbraith novel yet, Lethal White is both a gripping mystery and a page-turning next instalment in the ongoing story of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott.

Series:

Cormoran Strike

Book 4

Book Type:

Suspense

Review: LETHAL WHITE

Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott investigate a convoluted case involving a government minister, an unreliable memory, murder and blackmail in Robert Galbraith’s LETHAL WHITE.

The story picks up where we left off in CAREER OF EVIL, at Ellacott’s wedding. We see a deeper exploration of Cormoran and Robin’s fraught relationship as they each struggle with intensifying feelings, and how it could impact their partnership at the agency. Matthew’s continued opposition to Robin’s job, and perhaps more so, his resentment of Robin and Cormoran’s rapport, exacerbates the situation as a whole.

Meanwhile, Cormoran is left unsettled after a troubled man named Billy bursts into his office to share a tightly held secret—as a child, he witnessed a kid being strangled. This revelation sends Cormoran deep into a rabbit hole, involving a new client, Culture Minister Jasper Chiswell, who is being blackmailed.

Before too long, Robin and Cormoran are caught in a tangled web, investigating a murder with a shifty cast of characters eerily connected, each hiding secrets of their own.

It’s easy to be drawn into Galbraith’s singular storytelling. As with the Potter series, it feels like falling into a world that’s both fascinating and vivid, but with these books, it’s the gritty, malefic London underbelly. For me, this has been a series I’ve deeply adored, with CAREER OF EVIL as my favorite installment.

Although I enjoyed LETHAL WHITE, I admittedly felt some bumps with this one. At 656 pages, it’s quite the behemoth of a novel and it felt unnecessarily so. But perhaps my biggest bump was with the case itself. At times it felt confusing, and it wasn’t as interesting or sinister as what we’d seen with CAREER OF EVIL, for example. So although I enjoyed the book, I wasn’t consumed, obsessed, enraptured by it. After waiting for three years, I yearned to be so.

I loved exploring that taut dynamic of Robin and Cormoran’s relationship, however. They have such amazing chemistry whether it be on a case or in the potential of something more. Galbraith has written such depth and nuance into the characters, that they feel as real as real can be.

And because of these wonderful personas, combined with Galbraith’s writing prowess, I’m highly optimistic about the next installment… I only hope it comes sooner than the last.