I’ve been reading the latest in a series of books written by JK Rowling under the pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. The main character is a young woman, Robin Ellicott who goes to work with a struggling private detective called Cormoran Strike. Troubled Blood is the fifth book in the series and I think I’ve missed reading one or two of the previous ones. In any case, I’m struggling to make sense of some of the back story.
Cormoran Strike is the estranged son of a well-known rock singer and there is a motley gang of relations and hangers-on that he wants nothing to do with. There are too many references in the current novel about this background. I remember reading the first book, The Cuckoo’s Calling but have no recollection of the details. Why does the word Cuckoo’s have an apostrophe? Does it mean the cuckoo is calling or the cuckoo has a calling? Do I have to go back and start again with the series?
I enjoy book series but I expect each individual book to stand alone and not depend too much on what happened previously. The author needs to cater for the casual reader who picks up one of the later books in the series and enjoys it so much they go looking for more. It’s the ongoing characters I enjoy but I’m not particularly interested in keeping notes from one book to the next so I can follow the thread. Maybe Ms Rowling is too smug about her success with Harry to think things through.
I suppose her Harry Potter fans revelled in the obsessive detail she shovelled into her books about the young wizard but, for the ageing reader, wading through superfluous detail is just too much trouble. I want to cut to the chase.
I checked Google to make sure I had my basic information correct and found the following disclaimer:
‘This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience.’
… and I second that.
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