Robert Galbraith’s third detective novel Career of Evil continues the high quality of the first two of the series, The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm. Two attributes that make this so are first, the characters of Cormoran Strike, a complex private detective and his assistant, Robin Ellacott, a woman of comparable complexity (as we realize in this novel), and secondly, their developing relationship as detective and secretary, detective and assistant, and lovers.
To the story of the convolutions of their relationship Galbraith adds several criminals who are an equally fascinating study of criminal psychopathology: pedophilia, polymorphic sexuality associated with sociopathy, and body integrity identity disorder (a morbid desire for limb amputation or disability). The characters involved in these abnormalities could offer a novel in themselves.
Although the earlier novels gave broad details of Cormoran’s early family experiences, military service and amorous relationships, the current addition to his story begins to fill in some of the details about his parents, their liaisons, as well as introducing in detail several of Cormoran’s childhood and military friends from his early life.
We also learn a great deal more about Robin as she becomes the current murderer’s chosen victim. Traumatic events during her university days that have shaped her life, her career and her relationship with her fiancé, Matthew. The story of both characters could serve as the plot for novels in themselves, but Galbraith enticingly weaves them into the action of the mystery.
The possible criminals and their victims each with their varied psychopathologies are fascinating case histories for the psychologically minded. More than in the first two novels, Galbraith enters into these characters in a very realistic manner – describing in details their emotional, cognitive and social lives. This adds to the novel, and to the page-turning impetus of the mystery.
Give Career of Evil a read and see for yourself,