The Ink Black Heart

''The Ink Black Heart'' is a crime fiction novel by the English author J. K. Rowling, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It is the sixth and the longest novel in the ''Cormoran Strike'' series.

Plot

After Strike and Robin visit the Ritz for Robin's 30th birthday, Strike attempts to kiss Robin; she evades the kiss. Feeling rebuffed, Strike starts a relationship with Madeline, an acquaintance of his ex-fiancée Charlotte, a relationship he keeps secret from Robin.

Edie Ledwell, an animator who co-created the successful cartoon ''The Ink Black Heart'' on YouTube and which is now being adapted into a film on Netflix, visits the agency. She asks Robin to investigate the identity of Anomie, an online figure who co-created ''Drek's Game'', an online game based on the cartoon, and started harassing Edie after she criticised the game. Robin refers Edie to another agency with more cybercrime experience. Within the game, two moderators appear to have a dossier of proof that Anomie and Edie are the same. They share this with Josh Blay, the other co-creator of ''The Ink Black Heart'' and Edie's ex-boyfriend. Soon afterwards, Edie and Josh are tasered and stabbed while meeting in Highgate Cemetery, the cartoon's setting. Edie dies while Josh is paralysed. Throughout the book we as the audience are offered glimpses into online chats between the moderators of Drek's Game which help provide perspective and clues to the mystery. The mods are prohibited by "Rule 14" from ever revealing their true names or identities to each other. They live in fear of Anomie, the game's creator and chief mod, a controlling and belligerent individual.

The agency is hired to investigate Anomie's identity by a film producer seeking to adapt ''The Ink Black Heart''. They investigate various individuals associated with the cartoon and the North Grove Art Collective, including Josh Blay's agent, Katya Upcott, who is married to a domineering, wheelchair-bound former musician named Inigo, with whom she has a teenage son, Gus, a talented but socially awkward music student with a bad case of hives, and a precociously bright child daughter named Flavia. Much of the investigation takes place online with the detectives investigating Anomie's abuse and another figure, The Pen of Justice, a Woke blogger who criticised the cartoon for ostensibly being racist, ableist and transphobic. They also investigate ''Drek's Game'', where Anomie openly confesses to the murder, something treated as a joke by the other moderators, including its co-creator Morehouse. Two moderators appear to be associated with the Halvening, the alt-right group that compiled the dossier with fake proof and whom the police suspect committed the murder. Robin accesses the game and an active player to keep tabs on Anomie and the other players. Robin and Strike attempt to eliminate suspects by carrying out surveillance and examining who is otherwise engaged while Anomie is active in the game. They also receive phone calls telling them to exhume Edie's grave and open letters buried with her. In the game, Paperwhite, another moderator, and Morehouse appear to have a relationship, with Paperwhite sending a racy picture to Morehouse and including Anomie by accident.

After leaving Comic Con where Robin interviewed Yasmin Wetherhead, the former employee of Edie and Josh, they follow a suspicious individual, only for a man dressed as Batman to push him onto tracks as a train approaches. After Robin helps save his life, her photograph appears in the newspapers. It is revealed that she saved Oliver Peach, the moderator Vilepechora in ''Drek's Game'' and member of the Halvening. In the game, Anomie confesses this crime to Oliver's brother, Charlie, who is LordDrek, before banning him from the game. Soon afterwards, a parcel bomb damages the office, although nobody is injured. The publicity causes Morehouse to discuss going to the agency with Paperwhite. Robin is able to speak to the moderator Fiendy1 on a personal level and discovers she is Edie's cousin. She is able to identify Morehouse as a wheelchair-bound Physics student named Vikas Bardwarj. Strike and Robin decide to interview him, but Bardwarj is murdered before they reach him for offering to tell Paperwhite Anomie's true identity in an online chat. Bardwarj, being a coding genius, was co-creator of Drek's Game.

Strike personally interviews Yasmin and discovers that she was being blackmailed by Anomie to log in as them on several occasions, rendering much of their work to eliminate suspects moot. Robin also receives the picture that was supposedly send by Paperwhite to Anomie and is able to trace the girl to a Glasgow art student. They then figure out Paperwhite was a sock puppet account controlled by Anomie to keep tabs on Morehouse and the other moderators. Robin then receives a phone call, threatening to kill her. Strike realizes that Edie's uncle, a greedy alcoholic named Grant Ledwell, did not bury Josh's letter with Edie. After reading misogynistic abuse in the letter, they deduce someone with access to Katya replaced the original letter.

Soon afterwards, Katya's daughter calls them, screaming for help. Cormoran and Robin race to Katya's house where Gus, now revealed as Anomie, tasers Strike. Robin sets off a rape alarm before fleeing upstairs, where she sees the corpse of Inigo, murdered by Gus. A machete-wielding Gus pursues Robin, threatening to rape and murder her. Robin hides in the bathroom where she finds Katya and Flavia. Katya has been stabbed in the abdomen by Gus. Robin tosses Flavia a towel with which to stem the bleeding as Gus attempts to hack through the door until he is distracted by neighbours alerted by Robin's alarm, allowing her to hit him in the back of the head with a potted cactus, after which the neighbours disarm and overpower him. Robin rushes to the aid of Strike who has been stabbed in the back by Gus, puncturing his lung. She stems his bleeding as the police arrive.

In hospital afterwards, Strike and Robin discuss revelations that have been made since Anomie's capture. Gus found respite from his domineering and emotionally abusive father in ''The Ink-Black Heart'' and created Drek's Game as a tribute to Edie Ledwell, whom he had met once and who told him that she had been as shy as him growing up, and to believe in himself, causing Gus to become obsessed with her. Gus had become an embittered misogynist as a result of being unable to attain a girlfriend or sexual partner and took Edie's criticism of the game as a personal betrayal, causing him to become murderously angry towards her. He bugged his house to enable him to spy on his parents and had secretly not been going to his extra-curricular cello lessons, preferring to stay in his bedroom and live out his online fantasies as Anomie. When Inigo discovered that Gus had not been attending his cello lessons, he subjected Gus to an hour-long tirade of verbal abuse, causing Gus to finally snap and kill him. The audio footage on the bugs Gus had placed throughout the house enabled the police to hear what had happened, together with his threats to rape and murder Robin, allowing them to convict him. Flavia had realised that her brother was insane and she was the one who had been making the phone calls instructing Robin and Strike to look at the letters in Edie's coffin, believing that Gus had succeeded in placing his abusive letter in there, not knowing that Grant Ledwell and his wife had intercepted it before Edie was buried. Discussing the similarities between Vikas Bardwarj, who had been Gus's only friend, Gus himself, and his little sister, Strike and Robin ruminate on the need for children and teenagers to have secrets from their parents in order to feel a sense of privacy and freedom. Strike tells Robin that her name has been added to the office door, which brings her to tears, and that he has broken up with Madeline. Robin, who believed he was still dating Madeline, reveals she is now dating the officer, Ryan Murphy. After she leaves, Strike reflects that he may have missed his chance to date Robin.

Characters

Main

* Cormoran Strike – A private detective. He is a minor celebrity, thanks in part to his rock star father and his solving of high-profile murders. He is also a war veteran who lost his leg in an explosion. Throughout the book, Strike suffers extreme pain in his stump due to weight-gain as a result of his unhealthy lifestyle, forcing him to diet. The pain he suffers in his hamstring ultimately forces him to substitute his prosthetic leg with a pair of crutches, hindering his movement in the denouement and forcing Robin to handle things on her own.
* Robin Ellacott – Strike's former assistant, now business partner, trained in criminal investigation. She is a survivor of a rape and attempted murder and repeatedly suffers unwanted male attention, causing her to suffer occasional paranoia.

Recurring

* Pat Chauncey – The agency's office manager, a chain-smoker.
* Sam Barclay – A contract investigator who proves cowardly, unreliable and unduly self-congratulary.
* Charlotte Campbell Ross – Strike's neurotic and narcissistic ex-fiancee, a beautiful socialite and supermodel.
* Jago Ross: Charlotte's new husband, a violently angry man who is abusive to his daughters.
* Michelle "Midge" Greenstreet - A contract investigator who is excellent at baking.
* Dev Shah - A Contract investigator
* Madeline Courson-Miles - Strike's new girlfriend, who proves almost as needy and unstable as Charlotte.

Offline characters

* Edie Ledwell – Co-creator of ''The Ink Black Heart'', a successful cartoon started on YouTube and about to be made into a film. She is abused online by Anomie and other fans before her murder and is also falsely accused of being racist, ableist and transphobic by the Pen of Justice.
* Josh Blay – The former boyfriend of Ledwell who was also the co-creator of ''The Ink Black Heart''. Although he was stabbed in the neck by Anomie whilst attempting to protect Edie in Highgate Cemetery, leaving him paralysed, he lives and does not receive the same online abuse as Edie.
* Grant Ledwell - Edie's wealthy, drunken uncle who wishes to carry on Edie's desire to create a movie version of ''The Ink Black Heart'' after her death for purposes of financial gain.
* Rachel Ledwell - Grant's daughter and cousin to Edie. She is the moderator Fiendy1 in ''Drek's Game'' and is able to provide vital information to Robin on who the co-creator Morehouse is.
* Seb Montgomery – An animator on the first few episodes of ''The Ink Black Heart'' who Edie suspects of being Anomie.
* Wally Cardew – Josh's friend who voiced Drek in ''The Ink Black Heart'' until Edie fired him over a video mocking the holocaust. He runs his own YouTube channel.
* Preston 'Pez' Pierce – A womanising digital artist who voiced Magspie in the early episodes of ''The Ink Black Heart'' and a resident of North Grove Art Collective. He models for Mariam's classes.
* Tim Ashcroft – A former actor who voiced the Worm in the early episodes of ''The Ink Black Heart'' who now runs a theatre group that works with schools. A predatory ephebophile who repeatedly grooms teenage girls online, he is revealed to be the author of the pious and hypocritical Pen of Justice blog.
* Zoe Haigh – An artist with the collective and fan of ''The Ink Black Heart''. She is the moderator Worm28 in ''Drek's Game'' and Ashcroft's girlfriend, a victim of his psychological abuse and grooming.
* Philip Ormond - Edie's egotistical boyfriend at the time of the murder who is also collaborating with Yasmin, Edie's former employee, on a book about ''The Ink Black Heart''.
* Yasmin Weatherhead - former employee of Edie and Josh. She is the moderator Hartella in ''Drek's Game'' and is working with Phillip Ormond to write a book about the cartoon and online game. Weak-willed, gullible and cowardly, she is effortlessly manipulated by members of a far-right terrorist group called the Halvening. Anomie is able to keep her quiet by threatening her with going to the police about her interactions with members of the Halvening.
* Nils de Jong and Mariam Torosyan - Owners of the North Grove Art Collective, the establishment where Edie, Josh, Tim, Katya and the rest of the people associated with ''The Ink Black Heart'' met. Nils de Jong is a Neo-Nazi and member of the Halvening.
* Bran de Jong: Nil's brilliant but mentally disturbed and voyeuristic teenage son.
* Kea Niven - chronically ill former girlfriend of Josh who claims Edie stole her idea for ''The Ink Black Heart''.
* Katya Upcott – Josh's agent and Edie's former agent.
* Inigo Upcott – Katya's husband, a gifted musician forced to retire due to myalgic encephalomyelitis. Self-centered and belligerent, He is emotionally and psychologically abusive to his wife on whom he cheats compulsively, and to his son Gus, through whom he attempts to vicariously live his dreams of being a famous musician by forcing him to endlessly practice the cello.
* Gus Upcott – Katya and Inigo's adult son, a gifted musician who is bullied by his father and suffers from a stress-induced case of hives. Timid and socially awkward, with no romantic success due to his lack of social skills, he is ultimately revealed to be Anomie, as well as the Twitter user, Lepine's Disciple, in addition to maintaining various misogynistic and incel accounts online.
* Flavia Upcott - Katya and Inigo's highly intelligent 12 year old daughter, who is treated poorly by both parents and instrumental in helping Strike and Robin solve the case.
* Ryan Murphy - a benign local CID officer called to the agency for Robin's account of her meeting with Edie Ledwell, who later shows a romantic interest in her.

Online characters

* Anomie – A co-creator and moderator of ''Drek's Game'', who persecutes Edie after a video is released in which she said she did not like the game. A vindictive misogynist and an obsessive, controlling bully, he is ultimately driven to murder Edie Ledwell and paralyse Josh Blay. He goes on to attempt to kill Oliver Peach who told him how to purchase the machete he used to stab Ledwell and Blay on the Dark Web, in order to cover his tracks and goes on to murder his co-creator Vikas Bardwarj for planning to reveal his identity.
* Morehouse – A co-creator and moderator of ''Drek's Game'', and the online identity of Dr. Vikas Bhardwaj. Unlike Anomie, he does not attack Edie online.
* Vilepechora and LordDrek – Oliver and Charlie Peach, members of the Halvening and moderators who compile a dossier purporting to prove Anomie is Edie prior to her death. They provide this dossier to Hartella.
* Paperwhite – A moderator who is in an online relationship with Morehouse but is later revealed to be a fake account of Anomie.
* Fiendy1 - A moderator who believes Anomie is dangerous and later agrees to speak with Robin.
* Hartella - A moderator who claims to have proof Edie is Anomie, but was in reality being manipulated by members of the Halvening. She later admits to Strike she was the person pretending to be Anomie on his orders.
* Worm28 - A moderator of ''Drek's Game'' who struggles with dyslexia.

Reception

''The Ink Black Heart'' sold 50,738 copies in its first week on sale in the UK, placing it first on the UK Official Top 50 book sales list.

Jake Kerridge from ''The Daily Telegraph'' rated the book 3 out of 5 stars, describing the series as a whole as "good comforting crime fiction", but criticising ''The Ink Black Heart'' for its length, stating it " oes notseem to have more depth, or to cover more emotional territory, than the earlier ones did". The author Mark Sanderson, writing in ''The Times'', similarly criticised the length.

''Kirkus Reviews'' called the book " overblown whodunit", citing length and extensive focus on online conversations as reasons to skip it. They concluded the review by saying " ter a thousand pages ... the reader is likely to no longer care" who the murderer is. Darragh McManus from ''Irish Independent'' gave the book a positive review, praising it for "dozens of characters, multiple plotlines and, most crucially, lots and lots of things going on".

Outside of the length, the novel was mainly criticised, as well as widely mocked and derided on social media, for alleged self-insertion. The plot, in which a woman is killed after being accused of transphobia (among other prejudices), drew many comparisons to Rowling's real life previous controversial comments surrounding transgender people. Rowling denied the claims that the book was inspired by her own controversies, stating, "I had written the book before certain things happened to me online".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ink Black Heart
2022 British novels
Cormoran Strike series
LGBT-related controversies in literature
Internet-related controversies
Mulholland Books books