Next Cormoran Strike Story Released as Troubled Blood To Another Trans Storm

If you’ve been excitedly waiting for the next instalment of the Cormoran Strike Mysteries then we can announce it’s hit the shelves today and while we haven’t read the content, an early review from the Telegraph has us wondering if Troubled Blood may cause immense trouble for Rowling, who writes the series under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

The entire release of the book has been completely overshadowed by JK Rowling’s ongoing stance regarding trans people, or specifically trans women, so much so that we missed the release date. Now the book is here, but it seems that too might be overshadowed when you learn that the character who is a suspect in the novel, is a CiS man who dresses in women’s clothing to carry out crimes.

The Guardian today waded in to say that while the writing in of this character is a tone deaf, they warn today that you shouldn’t judge a book on a single review. While the Telegraph review pounces on this ‘man in a dress’ character, he is just one suspect for the case. The Telegraph review suggests that the moral of the book is ‘never trust a man in a dress’, but the Guardian don’t seem to think that is a fair assessment stating that the ‘transvestite’ ‘Creed’ isn’t even a main character and hanging an entire review on him isn’t a true representation of the book.

There’s no doubt that with Rowling’s apparent transphobic stance, this character could be considered decidedly tone deaf, but despite what the Telegraph are reporting, the entire novel doesn’t hang on it. It seems odd that the Telegraph, who often take an anti-liberal stance and tell us how trans books are going to corrupt our children, are hanging JK out to dry, while the left leaning Guardian are setting the record straight.

I’ll leave the last words with the Guardian journalist who said “And we should also be wary of how one review has been reproduced without question by countless newspapers and websites, by journalists who have shown no indication of having read the book themselves.”

And I’ll be back with a review when I have actually read the book!