J. K. Rowling

Did no one have the courage to tell JK Rowling her screenplay stunk? That no amount of talented actors or special effects can make up for the lack of a decent plot? That the rule for writing a screenplay is "show, don't tell"? More than anything, this reminds me of Peter Jackson's bloated, worthless Hobbit trilogy, which appears to have been stretched out to interminable length for no other reason than to make money. Perhaps Jackson is even more to blame, since he has proven that he CAN make show more good movies if he wants to. I guess the actors in Grindelwald couldn't rebel--I hope they were paid well. Katherine Waterston should be especially POed. She went from costar to basically a minor player in this one, and she has the worst outfit of anyone! I won't fault Johnny Depp too much. His character talks way too much and looks pretty stupid, but I blame Rowling for that. At least he comes up with a nice British accent and has some amount of presence--actually, it's a shame he didn't play Voldemort, who could have used a little more charisma. But again, to reiterate, the absolute worst thing about this film is that despite all the action, all the plot happens with people talking and giving these long explications of things that only the most devout Harry Potter fanatic could care about. All the human interaction and playfulness of the first film is gone. And of course, all it does it set us up for another sequel. I'm afraid, however, that rather than getting the comeuppance she deserves, Rowling's megalomania will only expand. Perhaps she will direct the next picture, also. I won't be watching if she writes OR directs. show less

From the first pages of "The Cuckoo's Calling", I fell under the thrall of the Cormoran Strike novels, snared by the depth and complexity of the characterization.

First there is Cormoran Strike, who, in other hands, might have been yet another twist on the broken ex-(military)policeman with a complex past and a tempestuous love life, but who Galbraith brings to the page as huge presence, a hulking, belligerent Cornishman, with a full-strength bullshit detector, a keen intelligence and a show more hunger to know.

Then there is Robin, the temp who grabs hold of her opportunity to work with Strike with both hands because it is a life-line that gives her a chance to haul herself out of the life she had been about to submerse herself in and become something different.

Finally, there is London itself, both the place, which is evoked with accuracy rather than reverence, and the social worlds it supports.

In "The Cuckoo's Calling" the social world revealed is the tiny ecosystem beyond the velvet ropes of VIP areas where the demi-monde of fashion models and rock stars interacts with upper-middle-class wealth and entitlement.

In "The Silk Worm" the acrimonious, narcissistic, money-driven world of publishing was dissected against a backdrop of gruesome murders and poisonous relationships.

By the end of the second book, Strike and Robin are a team, although neither of them is able to define exactly what that means, and the shifting boundaries of their expectations of themselves and each other, their misunderstandings, conflicts and shared triumphs had become almost a character in its own right.

"Career Of Evil" takes this much further. The relationship between Strike and Robin is now at the centre of the book, not in the typical romance novel "Will they? Won't they?" way but because the plot is driven by monsters from both of their pasts.

The violence in this book is graphic and the crimes are a heinous and yet my attention was more on finding out more about both of these people than it was on guessing who the killer really was. We get an insight into Strike's past through the men he arrested in his time in the Military Police's Special Investigation Bureau and through his relationship with his mother and her charismatic but fundamentally monstrous lover. We learn surprising and difficult things about Robin's history that set her relationship both with Strike and with her fiance in a new context.

The plot is pleasingly complex, laying multiple false trails to pique my interest without ever breaking faith and cheating by omission or simply leading me down dead-ends. All of the trails lead somewhere worth going even when they don't lead to the killer.

By the end of the book, characters that I already thought well-drawn, had suddenly moved into HD focus: vivid and memorable and the ending left me hungry for more.

If you have the option, I strongly recommend listening to the audiobook versions of these novels. Robert Glenister does a superb job. He IS the voice of Cormoran Strike but he also does an astonishingly good job of doing believable versions of the very wide variety of accents that Galbraith's characters have. show less

Private Investigator Cormoran Strike has built a reputation solving cases that baffle London law enforcement. In Career of Evil it gets personal, when Strike's assistant Robin Ellacott accepts delivery of a parcel that turns out to contain a human leg. Clearly, there has been foul play. And equally clearly, the person responsible is out to harass them ... or worse. While the police work to identify the victim, Strike focuses his investigation on three people from his past that may have show more reason to target him and Robin.

Meanwhile, Robin is weeks away from her wedding with Matthew, whom we met in the second book. Matthew is far from the ideal fiancé, and their relationship is strained. Matthew provides little support for Robin's career, and the severed leg certainly doesn't help matters. He is suspicious of her partnership with Strike, and not without reason, as there's a little frisson of romantic tension between Robin and Strike which both try to suppress. Strike makes a valiant effort at romance with a classical music radio presenter, despite the demands of his work.

And then there's the killer who is given chapters of his own to showcase his general creepiness and very scary obsession with violence against women. This man has killed before, and will kill again before this book is over. And as if that weren't enough, he has Robin in his sights and secretly follows her as she goes about her duties. The suspense builds gradually, in a way that had me stealing moments to read "just a few more pages" throughout the day. Strike and Robin aggressively pursue their three suspects until Strike has an "aha moment" where all of the pieces fall into place for him, but of course not for the mere mortal reader. From that moment on you'd better just stop whatever else you should be doing and finish the book.

Now, when will the next one be published? show less

I was a bit hesitant when I heard that they were releasing an official illustrated edition of Harry Potter, but my fears were all for naught. The entire unabridged novel was contained between the covers (thankfully complete, as they should never leave out a word of HP!) accompanied by wonderfully wrought illustrations by artist Jim Kay. He channels the films just enough to keep with the established and popularized visual canon, but his style is also very reminiscent of the cover designs from show more the book’s original publication, which I thought was a nice nod to original fans of the series. The majority of the images are obviously watercolour- or ink-based, and therefore have a wonderfully vibrant tonal quality which treads a careful line between the stylings of children’s books and material that will be a viewing pleasure for the original HP-generation (all grown now). Successfully navigating this line (especially considering the depths that the story, and therefore the illustrations, must grow to encompass in the later books) was a definite concern of mine, but it looks like Kay is going to well meet my expectations with his hints of darkness and careful balance as evidenced here. I can’t wait to see what he does with the next installation (and the rest of the series) - they can’t come soon enough! show less