Lethal White Hits the Top Spot but to Mixed Reviews

In the UK at least, Lethal White has knocked Bob Woodward’s Fear from the top spot of the book charts to become the bestselling book of the week and while figures on sales have not yet been collated, we can tell you that the previous book in the series, Career of Evil, has sold 1.2 million copies to date.

It’s a little over a week since the release of Lethal White, the fourth book in the Cormoran Strike series. I still have around a hundred pages to go (so no spoilers in the comments, please) but many of the reviewers across the Internet have already finished and completed their reviews and they are mixed.

The Independent mark it as ‘full of twists and turns but bloated’. The Guardian too offered a positive review, stating it was full of ‘twists, turns and tangled emotions’ but also noting that it may have been edited more harshly if it wasn’t written by an ‘alter ego of the most successful living writer’. The Telegraph called it ‘disappointing’ claiming that ‘Rowling loses her grip on Strike in this bloated whodunnit’.

The reviews across the Internet reflect much of the same sentiment and there’s no denying that Lethal White is long. Would I call it bloated? Not at all and I’ve enjoyed every minute of the backstory and the delving into the personal lives of both Strike and Robin, who make a formidable pair. I’ve loved the twists and turns, the wondering whether crimes have actually been committed and if so what crimes. The political twist in this instalment have fascinated me and just like in the previous instalments, I am still guessing a hundred pages to the end.

While some reviews seem to indicate that it’s a little too long, they all finish to say that it’s still a great novel and when I finally write my own review this weekend, it will concur with that sentiment!