The Running Grave

The seventh installment in the Cormoran Strike detective series opens in February 2016. Private detective Cormoran Strike attends a christening with his partner Robin Ellacott, who is dating Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officer Ryan Murphy. Strike has recently admitted to himself that he is in love with Robin, while Charlotte Campbell, his ex-fiancée of sixteen years, has been calling his office without response.

Strike and Robin are hired by Sir Colin Edensor, a retired civil servant, to investigate the Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC) and extract his youngest son, Will, from its grip. Will, who is autistic and highly intelligent, dropped out of university to join the UHC and has since cut off all contact with his family, surrendered large sums from his trust fund, and refused to visit his dying mother. A previous detective agency bungled the case, and Kevin Pirbright, a former church member writing an exposé, was shot dead the previous year. Although police classified the killing as drug-related, noting the murder weapon was a Beretta pistol used in other drug shootings, his laptop containing the book manuscript was stolen. The UHC, which has centers in London, Birmingham, and Glasgow, was founded by Jonathan Wace and his wife Mazu at Chapman Farm in Norfolk, the former site of the Aylmerton Community, a commune dismantled when its leaders were convicted of child sexual abuse. Strike discovers that Chapman Farm is the same place where he lived as a child with his mother, Leda, and sister, Lucy. In a painful conversation, Lucy reveals that Mazu, then a teenager, once led her to a commune doctor who sexually assaulted her.

Robin volunteers to go undercover, creating the persona "Rowena Ellis." She borrows designer clothes from Strike's half-sister Prudence, a therapist who treats an ex-UHC member and warns Robin about the psychological dangers of cult indoctrination. After attending services at the UHC's London temple, Robin is recruited by Taio Wace, Jonathan's elder son, for a week-long retreat at Chapman Farm.

At the farm, Robin surrenders her possessions, receives an orange tracksuit, and endures sleep deprivation, inadequate food, manual labor, and relentless doctrinal programming. Recruits are sorted into hierarchical groups, with wealthier members fast-tracked while others are assigned punishing work. Robin witnesses Wace conjure the transparent ghost of his dead daughter Daiyu, known as the Drowned Prophet, who supposedly drowned at age seven and became the UHC's central spiritual figure. Unable to explain the illusion, Robin enters the baptismal pool and officially joins the church.

Robin establishes covert communication with the agency through a plastic rock hidden at a blind spot in the perimeter fence. During a nocturnal trip to the rock, she overhears Will and Lin Doherty, whose mother Deirdre was allegedly raped by Wace and then expelled from the church. Lin begs Will to get her pregnant to avoid forced sex with another man, and threatens to leave rather than be separated from their daughter, Qing.

Strike conducts parallel investigations. A journalist tells him about a wealthy ex-member named Flora Brewster, who described violence, sexual coercion, and suspicious deaths inside the UHC. Strike interviews Abigail Glover, Wace's estranged elder daughter and a firefighter, who reveals that Daiyu was actually the biological child of Mazu and Alexander Graves, a young man with a mental health condition who died by suicide after his family removed him from the church. Abigail describes being forced to wear pig masks and sleep in a pigsty as punishment after Daiyu's drowning. The Graves family tells Strike they believe the Waces arranged Daiyu's death to seize investments Graves left his daughter. Strike also begins investigating Cherie Gittins, the girl who took Daiyu to the beach.

Robin's months at Chapman Farm yield critical intelligence. She discovers Polaroid photographs hidden in a barn showing four naked teenagers in pig masks. She endures a brutal "Revelation" session, a form of group confession in which one person is screamed at with abuse. She fends off Taio's sexual coercion, witnesses an agonizing unassisted birth after which the baby is immediately taken by Mazu, and is sent to care for Jacob, a dying child being starved in a filthy attic room. She also tries to befriend Emily Pirbright, Kevin's sullen sister, who is in disgrace at the farm and hints that Daiyu never actually drowned.

After Wace sexually assaults her, Robin is nearly drowned during a 'Manifestation' ritual, a ceremony in which the church claims to conjure the spirits of its dead prophets, and then locked in a wooden box for eight hours as punishment for her perceived transgressions. Realizing she is in grave danger, she escapes the farm by climbing out of a bathroom window and sprinting to the perimeter, where Strike is waiting. He incapacitates Taio Wace, who pursues them, and they drive away.

Robin's testimony prompts a police raid on Chapman Farm and other UHC centers. Emily Pirbright is rescued from the same punishment box, and forensic teams begin excavating the farm's fields for unregistered graves. Meanwhile, Will Edensor escapes with his daughter Qing and arrives at the agency, having deduced Robin's identity from clues left in the plastic rock. He is wracked with guilt over his actions and his mother's death, which he only learned of after Robin told him.

Strike and Robin arrange a meeting between Will and Flora Brewster, who has been in therapy with Prudence for years. Flora reveals the UHC's "Divine Secrets": the Dragon Meadow, a field used for illegal burials; the Loving Cure, in which Wace rapes women as a supposed treatment; and the Living Sacrifice, a child trafficking operation that sells unwanted babies to American buyers. Robin explains how the Drowned Prophet's ghostly appearances are achieved through a stage illusion called Pepper's ghost, shattering Will's and Flora's belief in the supernatural.

Strike pieces together the truth about Daiyu's death. He deduces that Abigail Glover, consumed by jealousy, orchestrated her stepsister's murder. Abigail and her accomplices—Jordan Reaney, Paul Draper, and Cherie Gittins—lured Daiyu into the woods, killed her, and fed her body to pigs. Carrie Curtis Woods (Cherie's new identity) then faked the drowning at Cromer beach using a straw figure dressed in Daiyu's clothes. Strike also realizes Abigail murdered Kevin Pirbright to retrieve his manuscript and silenced other witnesses with threats. After a car chase and shootout, Strike confronts Abigail at her fire station, and she is arrested.

In the aftermath, the UHC is dismantled. Jonathan Wace is arrested trying to flee to Mexico, and Mazu and other Principals, the church's leaders, are taken into custody. Will is reunited with his family, and Lin is rescued from the Birmingham center. In the final scene, Strike tells Robin that Charlotte's suicide note claimed he was in love with her. He does not deny it, leaving the statement hanging between them as Robin's boyfriend, Ryan, arrives to pick her up. Having finally admitted his feelings, Strike heads to the pub, resolved to pursue what he wants.