The relationship between Strike and Robin has evolved throughout the series. How does it develop in The Running Grave, both on a professional and a personal level?
Transcript
I think on a professional level with this book, Robin, it’s not so much that she comes into her own, because she’s already done amazing things, but she does do something that no-one else at that agency has ever had to do. You know, it’s incredibly demanding what she undertakes in this book. So she’s I suppose proven herself in spades in this book. She was the perfect person to go into the cult and Strike knows she’s the right person for the job, but even so he’s a little worried, as any of us would be worried, watching someone go undercover in a place like this.
So professionally they really and truly are now equals, total equals. No longer is there any sense that she’s the Watson and he’s the Holmes. I think they are now totally on a par. Personally they’re in a very interesting place because, as I say, Strike has now acknowledged what he’s been fighting for six books. He now admits to himself what he feels at precisely the moment where she’s thought well, there’s no point. I mean there is no hope for us so I am now with Ryan. So that’s an interesting thing to write. Their friendship, I hope, the reader will understand this because it’s certainly how I see it. Their friendship is the most powerful thing in both of their lives.
You know I am not sure if either of them fully recognise until this book, how much, how close they’ve become. Because in being separated Strike realises how alone he feels without her. He recognises that he would normally, if feeling a bit low, he’d ring Robin. Not necessarily for a personal chat, but he just likes speaking to Robin. And meanwhile she’s in this cult and realises that the person that she thinks about most when feeling vulnerable or exhausted is Strike. He becomes her touchstone. She imagines herself explaining to him the ludicrous and the sometimes scary things that are going on inside the cult. So yeah, so as I say in separating them I think I make them, bizarrely, far more close.
