Sweet lord, it feels like I've been reading this book for 20 years. Not that it's a particular slog of a book. The mystery elements are all attended to very well. The character of Cormoran Strike is interesting if not any sort of revolution of the detective genre. His assistant, Robin, is smart and capable but not very present. The actual solution to the mystery is intriguing. It's just, getting there seems to take FOREVER. 
 I think the biggest problem stems from the fact that this is very much a traditional, no-frills whodunit. We hear lots of testimony, many people give conflicting accounts, evidence is gathered, the proceedings proceed as these proceedings usually proceed. But there's essentially no action, no in-the-moment discovery or feelings of revelation. Cormoran Strike is such a reserved, highly British P.I. that, when he actually learns something of note, he just grunts, writes it down, and doesn't tell the reader a thing. His process is opaque and we, as readers, never really feel like we're a part of it. We're outside observers watching a man solve a case as far as we can tell. 
 I guess on some level all the evidence is there, and if we wanted to keep our own case journal and catalog the evidence as thoroughly as Mr. Strike, we too could solve the case. But, I don't have that kind of time. I didn't pick up this book to get a job. I picked it up to watch somebody else do his job. There's just so much EXPLAINING in this book. We never see anything happen, there's no intrigue to almost any scene. It's all just people telling a detective stuff that they know. It's probably what real detective work is like, which is to say, mostly boring with the occasional thrilling moment towards the end. 
 I mean, obviously J.K. Rowling is a fantastic writer. But I'm not sure mystery is her genre (despite the fact that Harry Potter hinges so much on mystery). The actual prose here is great, and I admire that. But the substance is missing, and that's hard to forgive, no matter how nice the wrap-up scene in the very last chapter of the book is. 
 Sorry, Robert Galbraith, but I think I'll pass on your future work.