Novel: Career of Evil

Overview
"Career of Evil" is the third novel in the Cormoran Strike series, published in 2015 and written by J. K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The story opens with a grotesque and personal delivery to Robin Ellacott: a cardboard box containing a severed human leg. The package sets off a tense, methodical investigation that forces detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin to confront violence that seems aimed directly at them.
The novel blends classic detective procedural elements with domestic suspense, leaning into psychological menace rather than purely sensational horror. As the case unfolds, the investigation exposes fissures in the partnership between Strike and Robin, bringing long-buried secrets and emotional vulnerabilities to the surface.

Plot
After Robin receives the leg, the detectives quickly determine it was mailed from within the United Kingdom and that it carries a very personal signature: someone is targeting people connected to Strike. The investigation follows a narrow but intense path, with Strike using his military and investigative contacts to build profiles, interview suspects, and piece together motive and opportunity. The narrative moves deliberately through interviews, background checks, and the slow accumulation of forensic and circumstantial detail.
Tension escalates as potential suspects are identified, many linked in one way or another to Strike's troubled past and to broader threads of anger and vengeance. Violence escalates beyond the initial shock, culminating in a high-stakes confrontation that forces both Strike and Robin to face physical danger and to reconsider what they mean to one another. The resolution ties the personal and procedural strands together, revealing how past wrongs and hidden lives can drive a destructive, obsessive pursuit.

Main Characters
Cormoran Strike is a large, limping private detective with a military past, a talent for observation, and a blunt, often self-deprecating manner. His personal history, troubled family relationships, the physical and psychological scars of service, and a sometimes shaky financial and emotional footing, shapes his approach to suspects and his blunt empathy for victims. Robin Ellacott is his capable, loyal, and determined partner whose own history includes trauma and secrets that complicate her role in the agency and in her relationship with Strike.
Their rapport is one of the book's central engines: professional respect, simmering sexual tension, and mutual dependence are constantly tested by the danger and the revelations that surface during the investigation. Secondary characters, from journalists to past acquaintances of Strike, populate the investigation and provide both red herrings and genuine leads, adding texture to the pursuit.

Themes and Style
The novel interrogates revenge, culpability, and how past violence reverberates into the present. It treats brutality and its psychological aftermath with unflinching attention while balancing moments of dry humor and human warmth. The prose is direct and observant, trading ornate flourish for clarity and a steady accumulation of detail that suits the procedural core.
Power dynamics between men and women, the consequences of secrecy, and the challenges of emotional honesty are recurring motifs. The book also examines the ethical gray areas of private investigation, where intuition and instinct often collide with evidentiary limits and legal constraints.

Conclusion
"Career of Evil" is a darker, more intimate installment in the series that intensifies the personal stakes for its protagonists while delivering a tense, carefully plotted mystery. The novel marries meticulous detective work with character-driven drama, providing a suspenseful narrative that reshapes the relationship between Strike and Robin and deepens the series' emotional and moral complexity.