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==Plot==
==Plot==
After Strike and Robin visit the [[The Ritz Hotel, London|Ritz]] for Robin's 30th birthday, Strike attempts to kiss Robin. She flinches, evading the kiss. Feeling rebuffed, Strike starts a relationship with Madeline, an acquaintance of his ex-fiancée Charlotte, a relationship he keeps secret from Robin.
After Strike and Robin visit the [[The Ritz Hotel, London|Ritz]] for Robin's 30th birthday, Strike attempts to kiss Robin; she evades the kiss. Feeling rebuffed, Strike starts a relationship with Madeline, an acquaintance of his ex-fiancée Charlotte, a relationship he keeps secret from Robin.
Edie Ledwell is an animator who co-created the successful cartoon ''The Ink Black Heart'' on [[YouTube]], which is now being adapted into a film on [[Netflix]]. She visits the agency and asks Robin to investigate the identity of Anomie. Anomie is the co-creator of ''Drek's Game'', an online game based on the cartoon. At one point, Edie casually criticized the game in an interview and subsequent to that time, Anomie has persistently engaged in online harassment of Edie. 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. They share this with Josh Blay, the other co-creator of ''The Ink Black Heart'' and Edie's ex-boyfriend. Soon afterwards, Edie and Josh are [[taser]]ed and stabbed while meeting in [[Highgate Cemetery]], the cartoon's setting. Edie dies while Josh is paralysed.
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 co-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. They share this with Josh Blay, the other co-creator of ''The Ink Black Heart'' and Edie's ex-boyfriend. Soon afterwards, Edie and Josh are [[taser]]ed and stabbed while meeting in [[Highgate Cemetery]], the cartoon's setting. Edie dies while Josh is paralysed.
The film producer seeking to adapt ''The Ink Black Heart'' for Netflix hires Strike's agency to determine the identity of Anomie. The agency investigates various individuals associated with the cartoon and the North Grove Art Collective. Some of the investigation takes place online as the detectives become familiar with the specifics of Anomie's online abuse and that of another figure, The Pen of Justice, who criticised the cartoon for being [[racist]], [[ableist]] and [[transphobic]]. Robin is able to gain access to ''Drek's Game'' as a player. The author uses the literary device of displaying in-game conversations between players and moderators, sometimes as complete chapters. The reader can therefore see, in conversations between the moderators, that Anomie confesses to the murder. The other moderators, including Morehouse -- the game's co-creator -- believe this confession is a joke. Two moderators appear to be associated with a [[far-right]] group called the Halvening, which was responsible for compiling the dossier with fake proof equating Edie to Anomie. The police come to believe that the Halvening is responsible for the murder. 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.
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 that 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 push him onto 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, although nobody 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, but Morehouse is murdered before they reach him.
After leaving [[Comic Con]] where Robin interviewed a suspect, they follow a suspicious individual, only for a man dressed as [[Batman]] to push him onto 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, although nobody 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, but Morehouse is murdered before they reach him.

Revision as of 08:48, 8 November 2022

The Ink Black Heart
UK first edition cover
AuthorRobert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling)
LanguageEnglish
GenreCrime fiction
PublisherSphere Books
Publication date
30 August 2022
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Pages1024
ISBN978-0-7515-8420-2
Preceded byTroubled Blood 

The Ink Black Heart is a crime fiction novel by the English author J. K. Rowling, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.[1] It is the sixth novel in the Cormoran Strike series.[2]

Plot

After Strike and Robin visit the Ritz for Robin's 30th birthday, Strike attempts to kiss Robin; she evades the kiss. Feeling rebuffed, Strike 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 co-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. They share this with Josh Blay, the other co-creator of The Ink Black Heart and Edie's ex-boyfriend. Soon afterwards, Edie and Josh 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 that 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 push him onto 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, although nobody 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, but 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 Gus's father's 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 be 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 'Pez' Pierce – A digital artist who voiced Magspie in the early episodes of The Ink Black Heart and a resident of North Grove Art Collective. He models for Mariam's classes.
  • 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.
  • Zoe Haigh – An artist with the collective and fan of The Ink Black Heart. She is the moderator Worm28 in Drek's Game.
  • 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.

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 and the online identity of Dr Vikas Bhardwaj. 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. Not a real person.

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.[3]

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".[2] The author Mark Sanderson, writing in The Times, similarly criticised the length.[4]

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.[5] 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".[6]

The novel was criticised for self-insertion, in which a woman is killed after being accused of transphobia;[12] It was compared to Rowling's previous controversial statements surrounding transgender people.[13] 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".[14][15][16]

References

  1. ^ @jk_rowling (June 30, 2022). "Cover reveal! 🖤The Ink Black Heart, out on 30th August 2022🖤" (Tweet). Retrieved 1 July 2022 – via Twitter.
  2. ^ a b Kerridge, Jake (27 August 2022). "The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith review: JK Rowling's Strike faces the social media trolls". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  3. ^ O'Brien, Kiera (6 September 2022). "Robert Galbraith's The Ink Black Heart beats a path to the top". The Bookseller. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
  4. ^ Sanderson, Mark (25 August 2022). "The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith review — no crime thriller should be 1,012 pages long". The Times. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  5. ^ "The Ink Black Heart". Kirkus Reviews. 27 August 2022. Retrieved 11 September 2022.
  6. ^ "The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith: JK Rowling's tale of obsessive fans punches its substantial weight". Irish Independent. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  7. ^ "J.K. Rowling's new book, about a transphobe who faces wrath online, raises eyebrows". NPR.org. 31 August 2022. Retrieved 31 August 2022.
  8. ^ "JK Rowling's new book features woman who is killed after being accused of transphobia". The Independent. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  9. ^ Robinson, Nathan J. "J.K. Rowling's New Novel Shows Why Having an Editor is Important". Current Affairs. Retrieved 31 August 2022.
  10. ^ Baker-Whitelaw, Gavia (1 September 2022). "J.K. Rowling's new book is facing criticism for its depiction of Twitter harassment". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  11. ^ Sharf, Zack (31 August 2022). "J.K. Rowling's New Book Features a Character Murdered After Being Accused of Transphobia: I Wrote It Before My Own Backlash". Variety. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  12. ^ [7][8][9][10][11]
  13. ^ "In J.K. Rowling's latest novel, the author is still sorry for herself". The A.V. Club. 31 August 2022. Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  14. ^ Roundtree, Cheyenne. "J.K. Rowling's New Book Just So Happens to Feature a Character Persecuted Over Transphobia". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  15. ^ VanHoose, Benjamin (31 August 2022). "J.K. Rowling Says Her New Book About Celeb Deemed Transphobic Was Not Based on What 'Happened to Me'". People. Retrieved 2 September 2022.
  16. ^ Hirwani, Peony (1 September 202). "JK Rowling says new novel 'genuinely wasn't' inspired by backlash to her comments on the trans community". The Independent. Retrieved 2 September 2022.
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