The Running Grave: Cormoran Strike Book 7

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From this view, all the things you expected in Strike6 on the assumption that it would follow on Strike 5 the way Potter 6 follows Potter 5 or the way Silkworm‘preceded’ Career of Evil will eventually happen but not in the novel we expected. Look for all the things we anticipated to occur in Strike 7 — which will via Strike EP not be an equivalent of Deathly Hallows.

Strike season 5 | Confirmed release date and news for Strike season 5 | Confirmed release date and news for

Strike EP has as its main contention that Rowling is not creating Book to Book series correspondences (see PSI 1.0) with the Potter novels but that she is instead writing extended parallels over one, two, maybe even three books with each of the first three Strike novels and the last three Potter books. Instead, she says it “stops at ten”. And I have to wonder if that was her original goal, and the whole recent fiasco has brought everything to an unnecessary, and unwanted halt? Let’s put it this way. It seems doubtful that Rowling ever intended for her series to have a Reichenbach Falls moment. Instead, it’s more that reality might have forced one on her, in the most ironic twist in the history of the Noir genre. Rather than wanting to cancel her detective, as Doyle did, she’s had to usher him into an unwanted, early retirement. Cormoran Strike Book 6 is expected to take place in 2015, so this tweet would suggest that Rowling has been writing the sixth novel since as early as Spring 2020. While she may have tweeted this before Troubled Blood was released, the fact is that the events of the fifth novel only run between 2013 and 2014. Naturally, I’m not going to give away whether this seventh entry in the series takes their relationship any further forward, although I will say that – unlike with the seventh Harry Potter book, which ended with Harry, Ron and Hermione married off to the loves of their lives – we seem a long way from a ­definitive ending to the saga. It’s not yet clear when the book will be published but it’s expected to be on late 2023 (or early 2024). We can’t wait to see what J.K. Rowling has in store for us in this new installment of the Cormoran Strike series.

I’m going to count this contribution as a ‘Yes’ vote for Strike EP rather than as disappointment with Strike6 or with those of us who were so mistaken in creating expectations of what it would hold. The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organisation that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths. I think all of Rowling’s comments about the length of the Strike series have to be filed away until there is any solid evidence they contain any truth of sufficient substance to comment on. You may not be the only one to be considering this, Kathleen, but you are certainly the first to say it out loud, even if there will have to be one more book in this set to make ten, say a ‘7C.’ I love this idea and have three reasons for taking it seriously, even embracing it, which I share below the jump, sans spoilers!

New Robert Galbraith book, The Running Grave - J.K. Rowling

The Rowling Library is not associated with J.K. Rowling, The Blair Partnership, Pottermore, Bloomsbury, Scholastic or Warner Bros., or any of the individuals or companies associated with producing and publishing Harry Potter books and films. My major concern, reading this, is the fear that recent events might have robbed us all of a potential, ongoing Mystery/Detective series. Something, in other words, that could go on to rival, and then, with time, surpass the Hogwarts saga. Everything Rowling has said up till now has pointed to the idea of the Strike series as the main output for the rest of her career, as it was for Christie, or Conan Doyle, for that matter.

It’s worth noting that there is also a poem by Dylan Thomas titled “When Like a Running Grave” which could also be used as a reference for the title. I can’t be the only one considering whether IBH might be half of “book six” from an original plan for seven books. I propose JKR has decided to divide the sixth and seventh parts of Strike and Robin’s story into two books each, which will result in a total of 10 books. If this theory is correct, JKR originally planned to write about the Halvening, and part of that story involved the relationship between artists and fans in the age of the internet. Her prolific imagination, spurred on by some intense experiences she’s had with her own fandom, created a story too complex and long for a single book, so she has expanded her plan and turned “book 6” into parts A and B, so now we have Strike 6 & 7 as a parallel to HP6 and an echo of Silkworm.