Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

 

"He left Della sitting in the darkness, a little drunk, with nothing else for company but the picture of the dead daughter she had never seen."

It was tough to decide where to rate this because parts of this book were incredibly enjoyable and others not so much.

Parts I enjoyed:

THE WRITING. The writing is impeccable. Any English teacher would wish they wrote so well. The words are a doorway to another world and within minutes I felt like I was off on an adventure in the UK and not sitting home in my rocking chair.

THE CRIMES. A crazy man is looking for justice for a child he'd seen murdered. A politician is being blackmailed by a protester, and in response he's looking for dirt on political rivals. Mysterious trespassers are on an estate in the country, but eyewitnesses are unreliable... And let's not forget a murder that looks like a suicide.

CHARACTERS. There's plenty of them and they merge seamlessly into this plot. Each one a little nuttier than the last.

Parts I didn't enjoy:

CHARACTER CONFLICTS. For starters, Matthew and Robin. I think the conflict stems from the need for Robin to be portrayed as Not-Your-Mary-Sue. To say the marriage is loveless is an understatement: it is toxic. It didn't take me all that long to grow tired of the fighting; if I'm tired of it, how could they not be?

I admit to not always being sure how Strike's girlfriends are always emotionally needy super-models. England must be very different from America if emotionally closed off, one legged, overweight, pube headed, hairy guys are what's most sought after by the size 0 community. I suppose that's not really a character conflict, just an observation.

The Robin-Strike relationship. Robin is not a Mary-Sue, she just wishes she was. But we are going down the road of "a man and a woman can't be in the same plot unless they're in love." I've got mixed feelings there. It's cliché. BUT. There's been so much focus on how perfect they are for each other, and everyone knows it but them, that if they aren't put together in the next book I'm going to be pissed.

My general conclusion:

If you want a fun, character driven mystery, that you don't have to think too hard about, this is it. As some of the other reviewers have pointed out, it's got far too many pages to be classified as light reading, but I disagree that the book was too long. It went by quickly. I still look forward to book 5.

3 Stars