The Ink Black Heart

The Ink Black Heart

UK first edition cover
Author	Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling)
Language	English
Genre	Crime fiction
Publisher	Sphere Books
Publication date	30 August 2022
Publication place	United Kingdom
Pages	1024
ISBN	978-0-7515-8420-2
Preceded by	Troubled Blood

The Ink Black Heart is a crime fiction novel by the English author J. K. Rowling, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It is the sixth novel in the Cormoran Strike series.

Plot

After Strike and Robin visit the Ritz for Robin's 30th birthday, Strike attempts to kiss Robin, which she flinches away from, fearing Strike's sober dismissal of the kiss. Rebuffed by this, Strike soon starts a relationship with Madeline, an acquaintance of his ex-fiancée Charlotte, a relationship he keeps secret from Robin.

Edie Ledwell, an animator who co-created the successful cartoon The Ink Black Heart on YouTube and which is now being adapted into a film on Netflix, visits the agency. Edie asks Robin to investigate the identity of Anomie, an online figure who created Drek's Game, an online game based on the cartoon, and started harassing Edie after she criticised the game. Robin refers Edie to another agency with more cybercrime experience. Within the game, two moderators appear to have a dossier of proof that Anomie and Edie are the same and share this with Josh. Soon afterwards, Edie and her fellow co-creator Josh Blay are tasered and stabbed while meeting in Highgate Cemetery, the cartoon's setting. Edie dies while Josh is paralysed.

The agency is hired by a film producer seeking to adapt The Ink Black Heart to investigate Anomie's identity. They investigate various individuals associated with the cartoon and the North Grove Art Collective. Much of the investigation takes place online with the detectives investigating Anomie's abuse and another figure, The Pen of Justice, who criticised the cartoon for being racist, ableist and transphobic. They also investigate Drek's Game, where Anomie openly confesses to the murder, something treated as a joke by the other moderators, including its co-creator Morehouse. Two moderators appear to be associated with The Halvening, the far-right group which compiled the dossier with fake proof and the police suspect committed the murder. Robin accesses the game and becomes an active player. Robin and Strike attempt to eliminate suspects by carrying out surveillance and examining who is otherwise engaged while Anomie is active in the game. They also receive phone calls telling them to exhume Edie's grave and open letters buried with her. In the game, Paperwhite, another moderator, and Morehouse appear to have a relationship, with Paperwhite sending a racy picture to Morehouse and other moderators by accident.

After leaving Comic Con where Robin interviewed a suspect, they follow a suspicious individual, only for a man dressed as Batman to shove him onto train tracks as a train approaches. After Robin helps save his life, her photograph appears in the newspapers. It is revealed that she saved Oliver Peach, a moderator of Drek's Game and member of the Halvening. In the game, Anomie confesses this crime to Oliver's brother. Soon afterwards, a parcel bomb damages the office, though no-one is injured. The publicity causes Morehouse to discuss going to the agency with Paperwhite. Strike and Robin deduce Morehouse is actually a disabled physics professor at Cambridge and decide to interview him. However, Morehouse is murdered before they reach him.

The agency discover that another moderator was logging in as Anomie, rendering much of their work to eliminate suspects moot and that Paperwhite was a sock puppet account controlled by Anomie to keep tabs on Morehouse. Strike realises that Edie's uncle did not bury Josh's letter with Edie. After reading misogynistic abuse in the letter, they realise someone with access to Katya, Josh's agent, replaced the original letter.

Soon afterwards, Katya's daughter calls them, screaming for help. After driving to Katya's house, Gus—Katya's son now revealed as Anomie—tasers Strike. Robin sets off a rape alarm before fleeing upstairs, where she sees Inigo's murdered corpse. A machete-wielding Gus pursues her until he is distracted by neighbours alerted by Robin's alarm, allowing her to hit him around the back of his head.

In hospital afterwards, Strike tells Robin that her name has been added to the office door, which brings her to tears, and that he has broken up with Madeline. Robin, who realised she was in love with Strike after learning he was dating Madeline, reveals she is now dating a police officer. After she leaves, Strike reflects that he may have missed his chance to date Robin.

Characters

Main/Recurring

• Cormoran Strike – A private detective. He is a minor celebrity, thanks in part to his rock star father and his solving of high-profile murders. He is also a war veteran.
• Robin Ellacott – Strike's former assistant, now business partner, trained in criminal investigation. She is a survivor of a rape and attempted murder.

Offline characters

• Edie Ledwell – Co-creator of The Ink Black Heart, a Netflix cartoon started on YouTube and about to made into a film. She is abused online by Anomie and other fans before her murder and is also criticised for being racist, ableist and transphobic by the Pen of Justice.
• Josh Blay – The former boyfriend of Ledwell who was also the co-creator of The Ink Black Heart. He does not receive the same abuse as Edie.
• Seb Montgomery – An animator on the first few episodes of The Ink Black Heart who Edie suspects of being Anomie.
• Wally Cardew – Josh's friend who voiced Drek in The Ink Black Heart until Edie fired him over a video mocking the holocaust. He runs his own YouTube channel.
• Preston Pierce – A digital artist who voiced Magspie in the early episodes of The Ink Black Heart.
• Tim Ashcroft – A former actor who voiced the worm in the early episodes of The Ink Black Heart who now runs a theatre group that works with schools.
• Phillip Ormond – Edie's boyfriend at the time of her murder, a teacher and former police officer.
• Kea Niven – Josh's ex-girlfriend who claims that Edie stole the idea for The Ink Black Heart from her. She has fibromyalgia which leaves her unable to work.
• Nils de Jong – A millionaire who runs the North Grove Art Collective where Edie and Josh created The Ink Black Heart.
• Mariam Torosyan – Nils's wife who teaches art at the collective.
• Bram de Jong – Nils's son from a previous relationship.
• Zoe Haigh – An artist with the collective and fan of The Ink Black Heart.
• Katya Upcott – Josh's agent and Edie's former agent.
• Inigo Upcott – Katya's husband, a gifted musician forced to retire due to myalgic encephalomyelitis.
• Gus Upcott – Katya and Inigo's son, a gifted musician who is pressured by his father.
• Flavia Upcott – Katya and Inigo's daughter.
• Yasmin Weatherhead – Josh and Edie's former assistant who is the moderator Hartella in Drek's Game and who is writing a book about The Ink Black Heart.
• Allan Yeoman – Edie's agent who hires Strike and Robin to investigate Anomie.
• Richard Elgar – A film producer seeking to adapt the cartoon who hires Strike and Robin to investigate Anomie.
• Grant Lewell – An oil executive and Edie's uncle who inherits her estate.
• Heather Ledwell – Grant's pregnant wife.
• Rachel Ledwell – Grant's daughter from a previous marriage.
• Jamie Kettle – A member of the Halvening.
• Charlotte Campbell – Strike's former fiancée.
• Jago Ross – Charlotte's estranged husband.
• Madeline Courson-Miles – A jewellery designer who dates Strike.
• Ryan Murphy – A policeman investigating Edie's murder.
• Angela Darwish – An MI5 operative investigating Edie's murder.
• Pat Chauncey – The agency's office manager.
• Sam Barclay, Dev Shah and Midge – contractors at the agency
• Stewart Nutley – An inept former contractor Strike is forced to rehire to cover the agency's workload.

Online characters

• Anomie – A co-creator and moderator of Drek's Game, who persecutes Edie after a video is released in which she said she did not like the game.
• Morehouse – A co-creator and moderator of Drek's Game. Unlike Anomie, he does not attack Edie online.
• Vilepechora and LordDrek – Members of the Halvening and moderators who compile a dossier purporting to prove Anomie is Edie prior to Edie's death.
• Paperwhite – A moderator who is in an online relationship with Morehouse.
• Hartella – A moderator and the online identity of Yasmin Weatherhead.
• Fiendy1 and Worm28 – Other moderators.
• The Pen of Justice – A blogger who criticises The Ink Black Heart for racism, ableism, transphobia and mocking the working class.
• Lepine's Disciple, Julius, Johnny B and Max R – Misogynist Twitter accounts. Lepine's Disciple is named for the anti-feminist mass murderer Marc Lépine.

Reception

The Ink Black Heart sold 50,738 copies in its first week on sale in the UK, placing it first on the UK Official Top 50 book sales list.

Jake Kerridge from The Daily Telegraph rated the book 3 out of 5 stars, describing the series as a whole as "good comforting crime fiction", but criticising The Ink Black Heart for its length, stating it "[does not] seem to have more depth, or to cover more emotional territory, than the earlier ones did". The author Mark Sanderson, writing in The Times, similarly criticised the length.

Kirkus Reviews called the book "[a]n overblown whodunit", citing length and extensive focus on online conversations as reasons to skip it. They concluded the review by saying "[a]fter a thousand pages ... the reader is likely to no longer care" who the murderer is. Darragh McManus from Irish Independent gave the book a positive review, praising it for "dozens of characters, multiple plotlines and, most crucially, lots and lots of things going on".

The novel was criticised for self-insertion, in which a woman is killed after being accused of transphobia; It was compared to Rowling's previous controversial statements surrounding transgender people. Rowling denied the claims that the book was inspired by her own controversies, stating, "I had written the book before certain things happened to me online".