Book Review: Career Of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3), by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

Genre: Detective Mystery
Date Published: October 2015
Publisher: Mulholland Books
# Of Pages/Listening Time: 492 pages/ 18 hours

Goodreads | Audible

Synopsis: When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman’s severed leg.
Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible – and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.
With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them…
Career of Evil is the third in the series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. A mystery and also a story of a man and a woman at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives

My Rating:

 ★★★★ 1/2

.....For Being A Great Re-read!

My Thoughts:

★★★★ 1/2, rounding up to ★★★★★

This was a re-read for me, and once again I found myself really enjoying it. It doesn't matter what genre J.K. Rowling writes in, she always writes well.

The mystery was fun to read again, and definitely a little more exciting than the previous two novels in the series, since Cormoran and Robin were more personally involved. I still sort of remembered who did it, so the ending wasn't a huge surprise, but I couldn't recall the rest of the novel all that well, so the storyline was still interesting, and pretty quick.

The character development was also intriguing, although I had one or two minor issues that prevents me from giving this read 5 stars. I liked how we got a good look into Robin's troubled past, and we got to learn about a few cases that Cormoran did while he was in the army, but I feel like their relationship with each other is turning into something that feels too much like a turbulent girlfriend/boyfriend relationship. Not to sound like a prude or anything, but I do prefer my fictional detective relationships to be strictly on the close friendship side and free of sexual tension. With that being said, however, I still love reading about Cormoran and Robin, and I'm really curious to see what happens next in their relationship in the next book installment.

Overall, I love this series! The mysteries are good with plot twists that bring to mind of Agatha Christie's mystery novels. The character development is very detailed and well done, just like in Harry Potter, and the plots are very well-paced, so you find yourself finishing these 500-page novels within a week. Definitely recommended for mystery lovers!