I hate to say this, but... this was not a good book. I really (REALLY) like the series to date... all of them, even the one that had Robin acting like a naive fool...

This one is... about 1/3 too thick and you could, literally, cut out those 200 pages and it would do absolutely nothing to harm the story. It would actually improve it... you would still get the whole story, but the pacing would be 1/3 faster and there wouldn't be PAGES of text communications that had zero purpose... I was tempted to tear those pages out of the book before I donated it for someone else to enjoy... then they could read the story without all the filler that just made it impossible to get into.

I also don't appreciate when authors write in an accent. I don't know the difference between the various accents in the UK so it is totally irrelevant to my understanding of the story. If you must, sure, tell me she has a Yorkshire accent, but don't then write it out... that's actually a newbie-writer no-no... so it is super odd that JK did that... maybe she had a ghost writer? ( )

Skip this one altogether. Rowling is one of the few authors that excites me with a 800-1000 page read. I love this series, but this book was a bust and literally can be skipped altogether. There is no progression of any ongoing theme in this book that would need to be known for the next book.

This particular book was overly heavy in conversation, which I never thought I'd say. Rowling continues to write out accents, which worked for Hagrid, but has become cumbersome. This is in addition to confusing game chatroom scripts, articles, twitter feeds, overall just painful to read. Most of the interviews were absolutely pointless and there was surprisingly a lot of repeat information.

The most offensive part of this book is that Strike and Ellacott didn't even figure out who the main suspect was by themselves. All that investigative research, and they stumbled upon the murdering suspect because they happened to want to interview someone else. Quite literally, Strike and Ellacott could've chosen not to investigate this main case and it would've made no difference. I'm inclined to believe that their involvement actually led to the more deaths.

I don't know why Charlotte continues to be in this series, her value add ended books ago.

I would've given this one star, but I finished it, and that in itself deserves at least two. I'm looking forward to The Running Grave, but I feel as though Rowling wanted to punish her readers with The Ink Black Heart. ( )

This was not my favorite of the Strike series but even so, I found it hard to put down and plowed through it in 5 days. While I liked the concept of using chat rooms and Twitter posts as clues, there are too many pages of chat, most of it inconsequential. I quickly gave up on trying to connect online personas to live characters because it was all so convoluted. Also, while the online entertainments at the center of the plot (an animated YouTube series and an offshoot game) are supposed to be compelling and to lure people into a subgroup of fanatics, neither the game nor the series sounded at all fun or meaningful. Cartoons for twentysomethings. And a game that seemed mostly to consist of players jockeying for position in the chat room. I suppose I should be grateful that Rowling didn’t add another 50 pages describing the intricacies of the game.

The methods used by the detectives to rule out suspects seemed a bit unrealistic and time consuming, and I found myself wondering about their hourly rates as several of them fanned out each day on what were usually fruitless hours of surveillance.

All that said, the book creates a world that brings both like minded and disparate people together, and each character is pretty well fleshed out by the end. I’ve always liked these books for their vivid settings all around London and other parts of England, and this one doesn’t disappoint. With yet another new girlfriend for Strike, we get a window into a different part of London society. And the realistic struggles of Strike, limited by a flare-up of his amputation site, not only deepens feelings for his character but allows Robin to take more of a lead. She’s so intrepid despite her difficult past; she’s without a doubt my favorite character in any contemporary detective series.

Possible spoiler: As for the Strike-Robin relationship, each book seems to inch it a little bit closer to something beyond friendship and this one is no exception. But I do wonder if they’ll forever be ships passing in the night. ( )

I enjoyed this installment much more than book 5. I finished it in just a few days so it definitely held my attention. It is hard to keep up with all of the investigations and people, but still a good read. ( )

Nice, but I think I'd have like it better if it was half as long! ( )