The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith – inside the cult. This is a very long story about a cult in the UK. There are a few subplots which neatly break up the main plot – a few other smaller detective stories and both Strike and Robin with relationships, and, as always, the private detective and his business partner Robin Ellacott’s personal lives are at the fore.
What makes it so long is the time Robin spends in the cult camp near Norwich which amounts to nearly half of the story. The requirement for young women to have sex with the older leading men – spiriting bonding – eventually catches up with Robin and the jeopardy keeps you asking how long she can both stay in the farm and not be figured out.
Is this necessary? It’s certainly interesting as Robin takes us through the initiation and then the process of becoming an active member, and her own investigations. It was certainly convincing in the power games played and the type of religion being played out. But it certainly feels like an idea imported from USA.
Could such a cult be permitted to operate in the UK? This is where I began to be somewhat critical of the story. How a cult could firstly operate in such a secretive way without any authority being able to openly inspect it made me wonder. Whilst lining up the obvious features – celebratory signings – Dowling keeps certain aspects of the cult mysterious such as the harassment of former members.
Robin’s time on the farm does explore the human wish for validation and to have meaning but Dowling chooses not explore this too deeply. What we do see is the detail of indoctrination in the farm. But Dowling has built in a credible basis of indoctrination to the point that Robin genuinely fears for her safety if she doesn’t comply with their rules of behaviour.
At the point that Robin has been found not complying with the rules and is punished, Dowling is convincing in portraying the fear. This time the story has gone further than before with the criminal sexual behaviour. It is well explained from the point of view of the cult’s philosophy with Orwell’s Animal Farm as a back drop.
Whilst Robin is in the cult farm Strike is doing what we love him doing; getting entangled with women, fighting with his staff, and managing more real life and peculiar detective cases. When Robin escapes it has that sense of real threat dripping from the page. Her period of recovery is traumatic but not as much as I would have expected.
The scene with Strike meeting Jonathon Wace at the auditorium is both captivating – stoked with tension – but somehow unconvincing. As Strike verbally jousts with Wace, Wace threatens to use the child abuse claim against Robin as a means to silence Strike. When Strike reels off allegation after allegation, – all that can be challenged – why does Wace not rebut them, and warn Strike he will sue him until his business is ruined, as a means of silencing him?
When the novel finally reaches the finale you realise you are still around a hundred pages from the finishing line. This becomes clear when Strike enters into a complex and somewhat long winded monologue with the guilty person. Whilst it is all wrapped up it does show how unnecessarily complex this plot is and does not need to be. A little trimming of the plot would not have gone amiss.
Ultimately this latest detective story is so deeply embedded in how a cult could operate so unlawfully under the nose of authorities in this country, it is a matter of whether or not you are convinced that will determine your level of investment in the plot. It is still feasible when real characters like Jimmy Savile operated in plain sight. Although a step a way from the formula of previous novels this is a gripping story that puts Dowling back at her best, with the cult theme. Like with all episodes in a series there is a twist at the end “to be continued.” I just hope the next installment is equally as intriguing as this cult but shorter and less convoluted.
