The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (Sphere, £25)
At 1,024 pages, the sixth outing for private investigators Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott is the longest yet, but although there are longueurs, this tale of internet pile-ons repays the commitment. Edie Ledwell, co-creator of popular YouTube cartoon The Ink Black Heart, approaches the agency hoping to discover the identity of her online persecutor, Anomie, but is turned away because of an already heavy workload. Shortly afterwards, Edie is found murdered in Highgate Cemetery in north London, with her collaborator and former boyfriend lying seriously wounded nearby. He is unable to name the assailant, but Anomie, who has invented a game based on the cartoon, claims to be responsible. Strike and Ellacott attempt to unmask Anomie, entering the game and interacting with The Ink Black Heart’s obsessive fans. This novel could certainly be seen as Galbraith AKA JK Rowling’s riposte to the treatment meted out to her online, but I suspect it’s not a coincidence that it’s set in 2015, the time of the #Gamergate campaign of misogynistic harassment which, as here, included doxing, rape and death threats, as well as conspiracy theories. This is a cautionary tale of the virtual world’s impact on real people’s lives.
