The Press and The Strike and Ellacott Detective Agency
Strike and Robin have had a complicated relationship with the press from their earliest days together. Strike, whose rock star father, Jonny Rokeby, super-groupie mother, Leda, and it-girl fiancée, Charlotte, are all subjects of tabloid fascination, finds he too is becoming newsworthy as the reputation of the agency grows. He hates the attention and fears his face becoming known will make it impossible to work as a private detective. Robin too grows to fear press attention, and her decision to go on her own on honeymoon after her disastrous wedding is partly due to a wish to avoid publicity following the capture of the Shacklewell Ripper.
But the press has its uses too. When times are hard, Strike makes money working for journalists; he’ll use newspaper reports and sometimes contacts for information, or to disseminate stories himself and at times he’ll even use the threat of press exposure to protect the agency or further an investigation. Breathless reporting of his and Robin’s successes can mean a flood of wealthy clients vying for their services, but, as events round their investigation into the man murdered at Ramsay Silver show, they remain vulnerable. The wrong story could bring terrible professional consequences in its wake.
The buzz in the street was like the humming of flies. Photographers stood massed behind barriers patrolled by police, their long-snouted cameras poised, their breath rising like steam.
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
The rabid press interest in the death of supermodel Lula Landry has begun to die down by the time her brother hires Strike to investigate how she fell from her balcony in Kentigern Gardens. He arrives in Denmark Street on Robin’s first day at the agency which is also the day Strike’s long relationship with the beautiful but damaged It-girl, Charlotte Campbell, has ended.
Lula too had a complex relationship with the press. Guy Somé, Lula’s close friend, blames them for forcing Lula into the dull but secure flat where she died and she was afraid friends and family were selling stories about her. Her boyfriend, musician Evan Duffield, even resorted to wearing a full wolf’s head mask to frustrate the paparazzi who pursued them.
During a late-night interview with Lula’s friend Ciara and Evan, Strike finds himself in a car surrounded by blinding flashes and the noise and light transport him back to the explosion which cost him his leg. Dashing into Evan’s flat, he feels momentarily allied to Evan and Ciara by the experience of being hunted by the photographers.
When Strike and Robin prove Lula did not die by suicide, and bring the killer to justice, the explosion of press interest looks like a win – it means he can pay back a loan from his father and hire Robin full-time. Unfortunately, he’s made the Met look like fools in the process, and that resentment will bubble away as Robin and Strike’s investigations continue. They will find some detectives keen to work with them, others will be on the look out for a chance at payback.
‘This better be good,’ Culpepper said as he sat down, pulled off his gloves and glanced almost suspiciously around the café.
The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith
Six months after Lula’s killer is caught, Strike meets journalist Dominic Culpepper near Smithfield Market to hand over information he’s just discovered on a tax-dodging peer. Though Strike is happy to take Culpepper’s money for the work, he refuses to give Culpepper the ‘rock star’s estranged son is a war hero’ interview that Culpepper craves. Dominic is, Strike reckons, a walking distillation of the prurience and presumptions he meets when anybody connects him with the ageing rock star who fathered him.
After his breakfast with Culpepper, Strike meets the wife of missing writer, Owen Quine, and it seems possible the author has disappeared in hopes of getting into the newspapers himself. His agent tells Strike that every time Owen Quine puts in ‘one of these little vanishing acts’ he expects it to make the front page. The story does make the newspaper, when Strike finds Owen has been gruesomely murdered, though Robin points out it’s the fact that Strike discovers the body which sparks journalistic interest, rather than Quine himself. That all changes when it turns out Quine’s death mirrors that of the main character in his latest, scandalous, manuscript. The broadsheets try and strike a dignified balance between an objective assessment of Owen Quine’s life and work and the macabre, Gothic nature of his death, while the tabloids go with headlines such as KINKY WRITER DISEMBOWELLED IN SEX GAME. Culpepper is enraged that Strike hasn’t been sharing details of the case with him, even though Culpepper introduced his cousin Nina, who works at Owen’s publisher, to Strike early in the investigation.
Charlotte Campbell too is in the news, celebrating her upcoming marriage to Viscount Jago Ross in the pages of the Tatler. Though she’s the cover girl, Strike is convinced Charlotte only gave the interview to send a message to Strike, using the flattering coverage to hurt him, and possibly provoke him into saving her from herself and her wedding.
Cormoran Strike was newsworthy these days.
Career of Evil, Robert Galbraith
Though the praise the Agency receives in the press after Quine’s killer is uncovered again results in new clients, it also draws negative attention; whoever sends the severed human leg to the offices is attacking the business as well as seeking to intimidate. Strike is sure that the insecure, frightened and angry section of the public that is the private investigator’s bread and butter, is unlikely to be drawn to a business that receives body parts in the post.
His fears prove correct – two clients leave them almost immediately. As Strike delves into the traumatic cases which may lie behind the grisly delivery, the press discovers there is a killer on the loose, and names him the Shacklewell Ripper. Dominic Culpepper is again outraged not to get the scoop.
The case almost destroys his relationship with Robin, but Strike makes it to her wedding and as news of the killer’s capture breaks, the guests realise the dishevelled man in their midst is being lauded as a hero in the press.
Two days after Robin and Matthew’s wedding… the press had driven him out of his flat, while it was still impossible to turn on the TV without hearing his own name,
Lethal White, Robert Galbraith
The fall out from the Shacklewell Ripper case drives Strike out of his flat above the office, not for the first time. Matthew also uses the press scrutiny to persuade Robin to go on their planned honeymoon together, even though his betrayal has made her question the marriage. Then, after a year of relative quiet, the Chiswell case means that the agency’s work is again on the front pages. Strike also finds himself dragged into newsprint when Charlotte Campbell, now Ross, tricks him into sitting with her in a popular London restaurant and a gossipy paragraph appears about it in the Evening Standard.
Success, as Cormoran Strike had long since learned, is a much more complex business than most people suppose.
Troubled Blood, Robert Galbraith
Robin’s uncovering of a bigamist just as they are being asked to investigate the cold case of missing doctor Margot Bamborough leads to another storm of publicity. Strike is news in his own right now, and the juxtaposition of famous detective and squat, balding, wealthy man who’s managed to run two families and a mistress is irresistible.
Strike avoids being photographed, and grows a full beard whenever he is called on to testify in court. Nevertheless, it is an ongoing battle to remain as inconspicuous as his chosen profession demands, and being badgered for comment at his offices is an inconvenience he could do without.
Margot Bamborough’s disappearance was widely reported on at the time, causing pressure on her family which has left deep scars, but Strike and Robin make extensive use of the contemporary reports to pick apart the truth. However its only Robin’s intervention, which earns her a black eye, which prevents an interview with an attention hungry writer on the night of Jonny Rokeby’s party turning into a PR nightmare for the agency.
‘Look, I can’t squire you to events where there are press. It’ll ruin my business. I’m sorry, but there it is.’
The Ink Black Heart, Robert Galbraith
‘OK, fine,’ she said, but there was a note in her voice that told him it wasn’t fine, not really.
Edie Ledwell is being hounded by writers when she first comes to the Agency offices in Denmark Street, though for the most part it is the fans of her hit show writing online rather than journalists who are harming her mental health and attempting to sabotage her business.
Again, the press’s interest in his personal life causes problems for Strike. Jago Ross is threatening to drag him into his divorce from Charlotte, which will certainly result in publicity Strike doesn’t want and which would be damaging for the business. His new girlfriend, Madeline, resents that he doesn’t want to be photographed with her, though later as their relationship falters, she perversely accuses him of only wanting to be with high-profile women. The strain of working harder than his leg can manage, dealing with Charlotte and her vulpine husband, and Madeline’s stiletto heel mean as the search for Edie’s killer reaches its dangerous conclusion, Strike is barely able to walk, let alone defend his partner, or himself. Strike is also confounded by the rapidity of the news cycle when the office is bombed, and he is fielding calls and texts from concerned friends and family within minutes of finishing dealing with the police.
Still, the partners find there is power in the press they can use to their advantage. Robin persuades two key witnesses to talk to her by posing as journalist ‘Venetia Hall’, and when Strike threatens to go to the press with the material he has gathered on Jago’s cruelty, he is assured he won’t be mentioned in the divorce proceedings after all.
‘Ah,’ said the journalist, looking up. ‘The famous detective.’
The Running Grave, Robert Galbraith
‘And the fearless reporter,’ said Strike, sitting down.
While investigating the Universal Humanitarian Church, Strike makes the acquaintance of a different journalist, Fergus Robertson. Robertson has gone up against the UHC in the past, and paid a price for it, but he has important information to share. Robertson reaps a handsome reward in the form of inside scoops when Robin’s terrifying undercover work helps bring the dangerous cult down and its leaders to justice.
Strike also finds himself in the press again for personal reasons, and this time it’s definitely his own fault. A foolish fling with an attention hungry lawyer called Bijou Watkins threatens to turn into a bigger story. Strike feels guilty, and his subcontractors resentful.
Charlotte, who has in the past attracted press attention around him he would rather avoid, calls him to say she’s stopped a sleazy profile of him appearing in the Daily Mail. Though the fall of the UHC will lead to another flood of positive publicity for the firm, the rumoured story is a sign that at least some people in the press are now eyeing Strike as a target.
Strike sat motionless, staring at the screen, every muscle tensed, a roaring in his ears, his guts full of lava. Culpepper had crossed over the line into pure invention.
The Hallmarked Man, Robert Galbraith
Troubles with the press cause a series of headaches for the agency while they are trying to identify the body found at Ramsay Silver. The suspicions of an ex-cricketer means that the Agency finds itself dealing with Dominic Culpepper again, and his irritation with Strike now morphs into a vendetta. Strike’s romantic skeletons are being dragged from the closet, and he no longer has Charlotte to speak up for him. His dalliance with Bijou Watkins too looks like it could become a story which will cripple the agency. Culpepper, as well as using his cousin Nina for unpleasant quotes about Strike, has even found someone else to speak on the record about the grubby antics of private detectives: Lord Oliver Branfoot. When Culpepper tips over into invented stories about honey traps and sex workers, Strike sees red, and only Robin ripping the phone from his hand stops him directly threatening the journalist. His habit of concealing his personal life from his partner means she struggles to trust him, even while standing up for him against her mother and boyfriend, whose own investigation is getting negative press. Strike’s journalist acquaintance, Fergus Robertson, is happy to publish a supportive article in return for exclusive quotes, but as the case of the body in the vault takes a darker turn, Robertson warns him a bombshell exposé is on the way, and Strike is forced to turn to an unlikely source for help.
