The Silkworm

This section marks a turning point in both the central investigation and the emotional subplots that shape the novel’s deeper structure. As Strike and Ellacott pursue leads surrounding Quine’s murder, Galbraith peels back layers of the crime and the people surrounding it. This mid-section of the book intensifies the stakes by shifting from external inquiries to more psychologically charged confrontations. Strike begins to truly confront the suspects, revealing within them deep-seated grief, ego, misogyny, and need for control. The grotesque crime scene begins to reflect not just one man’s death, but the collective rot beneath the surface of the literary world, a place where Ego and Vanity as a Destructive Force animate both the satire and the stakes.

Strike, increasingly physically worn down from the strain of the case, finds himself increasingly encumbered by scrutiny and his own demons. Reporters ambush him outside his office, foreshadowing the case slipping out of his control. His growing suspicion that someone at the Metropolitan Police is leaking information reveals his fraying trust in institutions. Meanwhile, his dinner with the Anstises, and subsequent dream about his ex-fiancé Charlotte serve to illustrate the contrast between the warm, functional domesticity that many around Strike enjoy and Strike’s own solitary existence, which he blames on emotional damage from his past. Even in spaces of safety or love, Strike is disconnected, unable to fully participate. Charlotte’s influence on him and Strike’s lingering trauma define how he views intimacy in his life. His resistance to emotional closeness with Ellacott is shaped in part by this damage: She is nothing like Charlotte, but his history with Charlotte makes emotional proximity feel volatile and unsafe. In this light, Strike’s dismissiveness toward Ellacott reads less as cold indifference and more as traumatized avoidance. This section highlights a man whose professional mastery is matched by his emotional detachment—a flaw that continues to affect his working relationship with Ellacott. Strike’s own performance of emotional indifference becomes increasingly visible, linking him to the broader theme of Identity and Performance. Like others in the novel, he wears a mask, but his is one of stoicism, control, and avoidance.

Ellacott, by contrast, begins to emerge as the emotional and intuitive center of the novel. Her role in the investigation expands beyond administrative support, despite being continually held back by Strike’s condescension and Matthew’s insecurities. In Chapter 22, her lunch with Strike ends in anger when Strike dismisses her, partly due to his frustration with Matthew. This conflict recurs in Chapters 27 through 30, where her fieldwork, driving skill, and deductive reasoning are repeatedly undervalued. Her frustration builds toward a subtle climax in Chapter 30, when she is forced to race for her train after Strike’s selfish insistence on stopping at Burger King. Ellacott is not held back by Strike’s assumptions about her. She drives expertly through snow, constantly notices clues Chard overlooked, and handles logistical messes that Strike cannot. Galbraith uses these episodes to underscore the imbalance between Strike’s authority and Ellacott’s growing capability. Her competence is visible to the reader long before it is acknowledged by her partner. This imbalance is framed through the theme of Gender and Power, as Ellacott is forced to prove her worth again and again in the face of both professional gatekeeping and personal suppression.

At the same time, Ellacott’s home life offers no respite. Matthew continues to function as a passive force of resistance, someone who asks for her loyalty but gives little in return. Her decision to lie about the trip to Devon, and her instinct to downplay her accomplishments, speak to a broader emotional split. At work, she is undervalued; at home, she is unseen. This dual erasure crystallizes the novel’s critique of Gender and Power, as Ellacott is caught between a partner who wants her to shrink and a boss who cannot admit how much he depends on her, let alone his complex feelings for her.

This section deepens the books discussion of truth within fiction. Chard’s revelation that sections of Bombyx Mori contain knowledge Quine could not have possessed calls into question the novel’s sole authorship. It also opens a new dimension to the investigation, wherein the crime may have been committed not merely in response to a scathing portrayal, but as a strategic attempt to seize or reshape a narrative. Galbraith blurs the lines between fact and fiction, truth and fabrication. As it becomes evident that multiple hands may have shaped Bombyx Mori, readers are invited to look at the crime not only as a physical act, but as something the perpetrator saw as an act of literary genius. This frames the killer as someone who uses fiction not to reflect reality, but to rewrite it, deepening the theme of Identity and Performance. The manuscript becomes a stage, and the murder a grotesque form of authorship.

The scenes with Chard additionally amplify discussions of class, ableism, and gender. Chard, a wealthy man living with staff in a country house, attempts to connect with Strike over their shared disabilities, but his approach is superficial and condescending. His dismissal of Ellacott as unworthy of participation mirrors the repeated underestimation she suffers throughout the novel. This encounter is also a mirror for Strike; Chard’s polite cruelty and entitlement highlight the ways Strike unconsciously participates in the same dynamics even as he finds them distasteful. Ellacott’s exclusion becomes emblematic of Gender and Power at play. Not only is she expected to be invisible, but when she asserts herself, she is punished with silence. Chard’s behavior is extreme, but the structural dismissal she faces is systemic.

Throughout these chapters, physical movement becomes a representation of slowed progress. Strike, burdened by his injury, relies on others to get around. Ellacott’s driving skills mark her growing autonomy and professionalism. Their near-crash in the snow, and Ellacott’s quick reflexes, dramatizes the shifting balance of competence between them. Without Ellacott, Strike is left to shuffle through the streets of London alone, in increasing pain with every chapter. The movement of various suspects is also examined, as Strike imagines how each one might have pulled off the murder without detection, by visiting their homes and retracing their potential steps. Ellacott’s control of the car, a literal vehicle for investigation, symbolizes her increasing control over her own narrative. Strike may still hold authority, but Ellacott makes forward motion possible.

Strike’s worst instincts are particularly evident in this section, where his disregard for Ellacott’s time, skills, and well-being reaches a peak. His insistence on stopping at Burger King while she rushes to make a train for her fiancé’s mother’s funeral reveals a kind of emotional entitlement disguised as pragmatism. That he later tells her to drive erratically through the snow in a car he cannot operate himself makes literal the imbalance of labor and risk in their relationship. Ellacott, who is grieving and emotionally strained, must carry both the emotional and logistical burden while Strike maintains control over the case and, implicitly, over her. These moments push the limits of professional partnership and underscore how Strike’s behavior, while often framed as gruff charm or wounded detachment, borders on emotional exploitation.

Yet even as he mistreats Ellacott, Strike’s protective instinct toward Leonora Quine continues to humanize him. His instinct to defend her, a woman dismissed for her awkwardness and social ineptitude, reveals a buried sense of justice that is not rooted in identification. Like Leonora, Strike is an outsider, one who resents performance, distrusts institutions, and is often misunderstood. His empathy for her reads less as gallantry and more as projection. That this empathy is not extended equally to Ellacott suggests that he does not yet recognize her as part of that same misfit category—someone dismissed, underutilized, and forced to perform stability for others. In this way, Strike’s fragmented empathy reveals his own limits, particularly where gender and emotional labor intersect.

Altogether, this section of The Silkworm sharpens the novel’s psychological stakes while inching the mystery toward resolution. It is a portrait of two investigators at odds with themselves and each other; one haunted by his past, the other chafing against the limits imposed by the men in her life. Galbraith’s layering of interpersonal tension, symbolic detail, and plot development ensures that the mystery at the heart of the novel is not just who killed Quine, but whose narrative will ultimately be taken as truth, both within the case and in the larger world. As the investigation progresses, it becomes clear that Ego and Vanity as a Destructive Force may be just as dangerous as any physical weapon. What’s being fought over is not merely justice, but authorship of the manuscript and of the case.