3.25 stars

WHY is this detective novel 1,300 pages? WHY? It's about the mysterious death of an online game creator, and the reader is privy to SO MANY in-game chat messages. SO MANY! And they are simultaneous, often three columns of separate text at a time. 

The author (Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling) obviously wanted to get her 2020 bad publicity in here, so there are many Twitter takedowns of these characters that are parallels to her life. 

As for the actual story, I don't really feel the chemistry between Strike and Robin. I like them individually and feel they are each well-formed, but this modern-day Moonlighting (partner PIs that keep missing each other) doesn't have a ton of appeal for me.

As I said, the mystery is dragged out so much in this one that I felt like it was going to have a much bigger and better conclusion than it did. It was actually kind of a letdown. 

I was touched at what Strike did for Robin at the end of this one - more of a professional kindness than a personal one because, as I said, not really caring for them to be a couple. 

If this were half the page count, I probably would have given it 4 stars.