Troubled Blood

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 breathtaking, labyrinthine epic, Troubled Blood is the fifth Strike and Robin novel and the most gripping and satisfying yet.

Praise for the Strike series:

‘A blistering piece of crime writing’

Sunday Times

‘The work of a master storyteller’

Daily Telegraph

‘Unputdownable’

Daily Express

‘Highly inventive storytelling’

Guardian

‘Superb . . . an ingenious whodunnit’

Sunday Mirror

‘Come for the twists and turns and stay for the beautifully drawn central relationship’

Independent

‘Outrageously entertaining’

Financial Times