Troubled Blood

In the epic fifth installment in this “compulsively readable” (People) series, Galbraith’s “irresistible hero and heroine” (USA Today) take on the decades-old cold case of a missing doctor, one which may be their grisliest yet.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough—who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974.

Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one forty years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. And Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention, as well as battling her own feelings about Strike.

As Strike and Robin investigate Margot’s disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. And they learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly . . .

• A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2020
• “Cormoran Strike, the detective hero of an enjoyable series of books by Robert Galbraith (a pen name for J.K. Rowling), has his most complex adventure yet in Troubled Blood. This hefty volume is stuffed with intrigue, surprise, action, violence, social comedy and romance: “value for money,” as the British say…. Our pseudonymous author sorts everything out by the end with the skill of a world-class storyteller.”
  Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal
• “Troubled Blood’s” central mystery is a strong one, and watching it unfold over the course of a protracted investigation is one of the novel’s great pleasures...Rowling’s greatest novelistic gifts are her ability to spin wild, intricate plots (witness the astrological elements of this latest book), and to create colorful, highly individual characters who come instantly alive on the page."
  Bill Sheehan, Washington Post
• "A scrupulous plotter and master of misdirection, Galbraith keeps the pages turning."
  Clare Clark, The Guardian
• Praise for LETHAL WHITE
• "Rowling's wizardry as a writer is on fulsome display in Lethal White ( 3.5/4 stars), a behemoth of a novel that flies by in a flash. This is a crime series deeply rooted in the real world, where brutality and ugliness are leavened by the oh-so-human flaws and virtues of Galbraith's irresistible hero and heroine."
  USA Today
• "At times you might feel as you did when reading the Harry Potter books, particularly later in the series, when they got longer and looser. You love the plot, and you love being in the company of the characters, and you admire the author's voice and insights and ingenuity, and you relish the chance to relax into a book without feeling rushed or puzzled or shortchanged.... Long live the fertile imagination and prodigious output of J.K. Rowling."
  Sarah Lyall, The New York Times
• "If you love the intricate, character-driven mysteries written by Tana French and Kate Atkinson, then chances are good that you'll enjoy the ones by Robert Galbraith. . . . Robert Galbraith knows how to tell a story every bit as deftly as does J.K. Rowling. Cormoran Strike, who lost a leg in Afghanistan, may limp painfully through much of the book, but the tale being told never misses a step."
  Joyce Sáenz Harris, Dallas Morning News
• "Even if the world is the seedy underbelly of contemporary London and not Magical Hogwarts, cracking the cover of a Galbraith novel is like stepping through a portal. You're immersed all at once."
  Bustle
• "Addictive, murderous fun."
  
  Vox
• "Compulsively readable."
  People
• "One of contemporary crime fiction's most delightful partnerships."
  Seattle Times
• "Rowling's emotionally intelligent portrayal of her protagonists never overwhelms the whodunit story line."
  Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
• "Rowling deftly circumnavigates all of the tropes and constructs that have long since relegated the male-author-dominated thriller genre to a place of ridicule and sheer inanity."
  
  Tablet Magazine