Career of Evil

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

SPOILER REVIEW

4/5  *I gave the first two in the series both 5/5. I don’t know why I rated this one a star below its predecessors. This book had all the gusto the others had there was just something missing.

The first book: Fame
The second book: Sadistic
The latest installment: Dark
I mean that in the best way possible.

It’s the time in the season for a maniac at night. – Blue Öyster Cult, “Madness to the Method”

The plot (non-spoiler):
– Robin gets a lovely present in the mail
– Strike is awesome and a grouch at the same time
– MURDER MURDER FUN FUN *sings* there’s a serial killer on the loose!
– Matthew sucks
– Oh my god Matthew please leave
– Jfc Matthew
– Murder investigationing
– Strike & Robin working with the police dude for justice
– Wedding preparations feat. Robin’s mum
– I don’t like matthew
– More murder probably
– Lol that one time when I was very happy
– WHOOP NOPE *the thing happens* JKR DOESN’T CARE ABOUT MY FEELINGS
– Murder murDER m u r d e r
– Happiness, we’ve caught the killer hurrah!
– Confusion. Seriously what was that ending?

“Psychology’s loss,” said Strike, “is private detection’s gain.

Career of Evil is pretty centered around Robin which was a lovely change. Because we had more Robin in this novel we got backstory, I live for backstory.

This story was quite different to the other two. In the first book we are being introduced to the characters, there are a shit tonne of interviews and there’s a lot of press. The second book was a missing persons case that turned into a murder case. The latest installment in this series is, in a word darker. The characters have grown and gotten stronger.

This book was different from the previous two in the sense that it was personal for both Strike and Robin. Strike has three main suspects from his past who are awful enough and certainly disturbing enough to be he murderer. In this installment we finally learn why Robin never finished university, something that some people may have trouble with. I didn’t have a problem with it unlike the characters like her family, friends and even Strike. My main problem with this novel, is something we’re supposed to have a problem with. His name is Matthew and I hate him.

“I do,” said Robin in a ringing voice, looking straight into the eyes, not of her stony-faced new husband, but of the battered and bloodied man who had just sent her flowers crashing to the floor.”

Robin was raped and left for dead by the man who attacked her, her rape left her with depression and agoraphobia. Because of what happened in her past her career was pushed onto the back burner. She then spends years recovering while, she takes self-defense classes and defensive driving lessons. She does all of this while Mathew stays at college and ‘hangs out’ with his bff. Robin finally got to a place in her life where she felt better about herself and was able to live her life.

When we meet Robin in the first book she is in a safe and easy place in her life, with Matthew. When Robin took the job with Strike, Matthew’s insecurities started playing up and he felt like he was losing Robin so he acted like even more of a dick then he already was. Matthew is absolutely awful. He just gets worse and worse throughout the book. When Robin broke it off with Matthew it was like a god send. I was so happy guys you don’t even know. And then she had to get back with him, guys I spat fire I was so mad. It makes me sad that she was with him for so long and that because she’s such compassionate and sympathetic woman that it will take her a long time to get to a place where she is completely okay with Matthew being out of her life completely.
Okay so Robin is married to Matthew now and obviously it’s going to take a while and a lot of shit’s going to go down before she fully comes to her senses and chucks him tf out. I think what one of the big things that really got to me about Matthew in this novel is that Matthew thought that he was well within his rights to delete the message from Strike onRobin’s phone. What a great way to earn someone’s respect back, delete messages off of their phone. What a dumbass. Robin is going to find out about what he did and I honestly can’t wait.

*Recommendation: listen to this series on audiobook. Apart from the Harry Potter audiobooks I don’t really have any favourites, but this is definitely a favourite of mine. I have a lot of trouble sitting don’t and actually reading this series but I love the audiobooks. The narrator gets the characters just right, all of the accents he does are ON POINT and he portrays the characters exactly how I would picture them. I cannot explain how well the narrator does Cormoran Strike, the accent just is Cormoran. If I had never given the audiobook of the first novel a try I probably wouldn’t have read any of the books.