The Hallmarked Man, by Robert Galbraith review: 'extraordinary'

The novel begins with private detective Cormoran Strike being asked by a nervous, well-born woman in her thirties, mother of a baby whose existence she wants to keep secret, to find out what has become of her young lover, the baby’s father, who has disappeared.

Remarkably she insists that he is dead, and that’s all she really wants to know. She believes he may be a mutilated corpse discovered in the vaults of a silver shop dealing in Masonic ware. There is a good deal of stuff about the Masons here, and a good deal of Masonic lore, but this is essentially agreeable decoration.

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What makes these novels so good, enthralling indeed, is the relationship between the two partners in the private detective agency, Strike, the former army policeman who lost half his leg in Afghanistan, and Robin, a still young woman, and a survivor of sexual assault.

It has been obvious for several books now that they love each other and must (surely?) some day be more than business partners, but Galbraith plays with the question of “when” like a cat with a mouse.

It’s a coming-together that has not yet been achieved, already lasting longer that the the comparable “will they/won’t they” between Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. The comparison is a fair one. In both cases the obstacles are real.

Here it is a question first of Strike’s own rather cluttered love-live; the last novel ended with the suicide of his former fiancée, the beautiful, talented and neurotic Charlotte. Here Strike still has to deal with members of her appalling family. Other dark things in his past surface here and he also becomes the target of a tabloid sting.

Meanwhile Robin seeks security, and is uncertain if she can achieve this with Strike. Instead she has a boyfriend, a CID officer who views the actions of the detective agency with suspicion, and Strike with resentment. Of course, Robin’s mother favours the policeman.

If the relationship between Strike and Robin lies at the heart of the novel, most of what one may call the exterior action is concerned with the agency’s cases, and not only the murder in the silver vaults. That may be at the centre of the narrative but other cases require attention too. Many crime novels deal only with a single crime and its consequences, but here there is a variety of cases, a reminder that the agency is a professional outfit.

Investigations are detailed, usually carried on in lone conversations. This might be distracting, even tiresome, but Galbraith writes with such intelligent authority that, bizarre as much here is, it all rings true, often disturbingly true.

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Galbraith has an unusual ability to carry on the investigations in talk, often talk that seems at first irrelevant. There is much variety in these conversations and the author’s ability to hold your attention while the narrative jogs along, sometimes seemingly towards a dead end, is remarkable.

Galbraith modulates the pace of the novel with great skill. There are agreeable diversions, one here provided by an ambitious new member of the agency, a self-confident young woman, formerly an officer in the Met, who has her eye on Strike and rather despises Robin because she never served in the Army or the Met. I hope she gets her come-uppance in the next book.

These Galbraith novels are remarkable, the management of a variety of themes and stories extraordinary. Indeed, I would rather read Galbraith than any other crime writer now active. These are books you can happily lose yourself in.

The Hallmarked Man, by Robert Galbraith, Sphere, £30​.

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