Career of Evil

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence and rape.

Career of Evil is the third installment in Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series, building on its predecessors, The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm. The protagonist, private detective Cormoran Strike, is a former investigator with the British Army whose leg was partially amputated after an explosion in Afghanistan. A complex character, Strike is burdened by horrific memories of warfare and his chaotic upbringing as the illegitimate son of rock star Jonny Rokeby and Rokeby’s devoted fan Leda Strike.

Strike’s assistant Robin Ellacott begins the series as a temporary secretary when the detective agency has financial difficulties. She quickly proves indispensable, gaining more responsibility as the series progresses. Career of Evil alludes to high-profile cases Strike and Robin have solved earlier in the series, including the murders of model Lula Landry (The Cuckoo’s Calling) and author Owen Quine (The Silkworm). At the beginning of Career of Evil, the detective agency is flourishing due to these successes.

Several recurring characters add continuity, and their connections to the protagonists are expanded. Robin’s fiancé, Matthew Cunliffe, is a love interest whose opposition to Robin’s aspirations is meant to make him an unsympathetic character. The novel reveals the roots of Strike’s unlikely alliance with Shanker, a criminal acquaintance. Strike’s cooperation with Detective Inspector Wardle over the investigation of the severed leg stems from an amicable relationship developed in previous cases. Meanwhile, DI Carver bears a grudge toward Strike after the private detective highlighted Carver’s shortcomings in the Lula Landry investigation. In Career of Evil, Carver continues to be resentful of Strike’s success and misguided in his professional instincts.

References to Charlotte Campbell in Career of Evil allude to Strike’s beautiful, manipulative, and emotionally unstable former fiancée. Strike split with Charlotte just before The Cuckoo’s Calling begins; the end of the relationship leaves him financially destitute, with nowhere to live except the flat above his office. Charlotte then marries another man to spite Strike, who bears the emotional scars of their toxic 16-year relationship.

The series explores violence and its psychological effects, focusing specifically on Misogyny and Violence Against Women. The third novel also returns to the lingering effects of trauma, delving into Strike’s past and Robin’s survival of a rape attack. Strike and Robin’s shifting personal and professional relationship in the narrative also builds on tensions introduced in the previous books.

Set primarily in London, Career of Evil returns to familiar locations from The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm: Strike’s detective agency in Denmark Street, his small flat above the office, and The Tottenham pub that is Strike’s favored place to discuss cases and think. Robin’s revelation of Matthew’s infidelity and her survival of rape in The Tottenham deliberately echoes Strike’s account of his painful relationship with Charlotte in The Cuckoo’s Calling. The parallel reinforces the notion of the pub as a venue that encourages greater intimacy between Strike and Robin.