Lethal White

So Lethal White, the latest crime thriller by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling, is the harrowing tale of the grizzled Detective Comoran Strike and his gorgeous assistant Robin's eternal struggle to come up with more reasons why they shouldn't sleep together even though they both would very much like to.

The Strike books have thus far been on the 'pretty good' side of things, but I am sorry to say that this one only manages to reach the level of 'it was alright I guess'.

One of the reasons for this is that the sexual tension between Strike and Robin is so damn thick so as to be distracting. That has been an ever-present part of these novels since the get-go but it's getting to the point where it's been milked for all it's worth. It's just painfully obvious that that's where that arc is going and having page after page of Robin contemplating whether she loves her boss or not while Strike broods about how he hates the fact Robin is married now is just plain dull after a while.

Another reason for this is that the murder plot at work in this thing is so utterly and ridiculously elaborate that it is just plain cartoonish and needlessly complicated. I mean, it gets to the point where I was ask myself at the end: "Is killing someone like this really less efficient than just leaving a banana peel on the stairs or dropping a toaster in the bath?"

And the fact that witnesses openly withhold critical information from Strike for no damn reason for the bulk of the book and Strike just sort of nods and plays along. There's a blackmail plot and no one wants to say what the damn guy is being blackmailed about. At a certain point, one would have expected our hero to just say: "Look, do you want this shit solved or what?" but that moment just never came.

The thing is still well-written and I like these characters. When another of these things, I'll read it. But the prime emotion I associate with the text is still irritation. Either I was feeling irritated at the two protagonists' love problems or at irritated at the frustrating way that the investigation was artificially handicapped from the get-go.

Lethal White is thus a fairly unremarkable offering, typical of this era of mediocrity that we are currently suffering through.

Anyway, let's talk some book specifics.




1) JK Rowling's political "opinions"

(See Joanne, I can put scare quotes around terms too and it looks just as judgmental)

So JK Rowling being a Blairite Labour shill is one of the unpleasant things I learned about her by following her on Twitter. There is a useful term I learned while reading responses to her accusations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn, which is "PEP" or "Progressive Except Palestine". This term refers to someone who will retweet a bunch of shit about gun control after a school massacre, condemn Saudi crackdowns on feminist authors and maybe say something about Burma, but then mysteriously not have much to say when it comes to Israeli snipers murdering a bunch of protesters. You probably know the type.

It thus came as little surprise to me to find her sniping at the Palestinian cause in the pages of this book. This comes through the portrayal of a small left wing splinter group called CORE, which is portrayed as a bunch of lefty dead-enders that live in squalor. Giving a shit about Palestine is equated in the book with Marxist wealth redistribution, anarchism and protesting against the Olympics.

So here's another fabulously rich white person publicly delegitimatizing the Palestinian cause. Colour me surprised.

2) JK Rowling's portrayal of Muslims

Tell me if you've heard this one before: A brown skinned Muslim guy is rumoured to be gay, so his entire family/community shuns him and casts him out forever because Muslims just aren't going to have that.

If you have heard that story before, then get ready to hear it again in Lethal White. It's the kind of story you would tell if you don't have any Muslim friends (which you probably don't because of the above) and only hear about what happens in Muslim families when stuff about them manages to pop up in the newspapers or exposes. Add to that the fact that the guy is described as being smart because he went to some of the better British schools and got into the Foreign Office on a diversity program...

Sigh.

You know, Aamir is I think the second Muslim character JK Rowling has ever written, with the first being Mustafa the dumb Quidditch referee that got horny looking at Veela. The thought does sort of creep into my mind as I reflect on that is this: "Is JK Rowling an Islamophobe?"

If this weren't one of my favourite authors, I do think it would be pretty easy to say yes. The fact that I want to say no only stems from the fact that I irrationally still want to like her.

Let's leave it at that for now.