My Review of The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

This is the sixth book of the series. It’s by far the biggest I’ve ever read with 1,460 pages and 107 chapters. Even bigger than War and Peace at 1,440! It cost £5.49, which is expensive for me to buy, but when you think of what you get, it’s not.

However, before I ended my Audible membership I downloaded it as my ‘free book’. I thought it would be good to try listening without the reading accompaniment. It didn’t work. There were times when I needed, yearned, to get back to the characters but it was inconvenient to play it.

I have to also add that it was expertly narrated by Robert Glennister. There were a lot of characters, and he cleverly did a multitude of accents.

The relationship between Cormoran and Robin was as tantalising as the case they were trying to solve. There was a lot to love about this book. It’s the only one I haven’t seen on TV first. So I had no clue where it was going and who the agitator was. As usual it was superbly written with fully formed characters.

There was also plenty I didn’t like about this book. The authors constant love of using the c word, which I abhor was one. It was also grossly overwritten. For example, the quotes at the beginning of each chapter, immediately forgotten, offered nothing to the story except exaggerating the word count. Another thing was when characters read tweets, it wasn’t necessary for the whole thread to be written verbatim. Every twitter name in full, who was being replied to, and all the hashtags just like a long list. A summary would have sufficed, instead we got pages of it.

Overall, and despite that, The Ink Black Heart was a fantastic story. I was totally absorbed in it during the four weeks it took me to finish. The plot was complex as were the multitude of characters. I didn’t always remember who everyone was, and unsure at times what was happening, but none of that mattered. I got the gist of it and the chemistry between Comoran and Robin drove me on, When I finally finished, I had severe withdrawal symptoms. I can’t wait to read the next book and even considering pay £12.99 to do so. Would I recommend it? Without a doubt! But caution is advised. There are a lot of racist and vile comments and characters with deprived minds. Even after all that, I still give it five stars.

Other Books by the Author