It’s not as if Rowling-Galbraith does not have a model for this kind of stretching. Warner Brothers in a bit of shameless profit-taking for their biggest film franchise made two movies out of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which resulted in two films making a kazillion dollars instead of just one. That was such a success that the Hunger Games and Twilight series finales were also made into two movies (which made sense for Twilight because that series ender was actually written as two books, for which story see my Spotlight). It’s not, there are actually more than that. The beauty of writing these types of novels is that they each have their own discrete story, so the series is pretty open ended. It will run for as long as I have stories to tell.”

New Robert Galbraith book, The Running Grave - J.K. Rowling

Things certainly don’t look good from Strike’s perspective at the beginning of the book, as Robin is enjoying an apparently successful relationship with Ryan Murphy, the C I D officer she met in the last ­volume (and a man much more ­conventionally good-looking than Strike, who – in a description so familiar that it’s come to have the status of a Homeric epithet – is once again described here as “a broken-nosed Beethoven”). She has also admitted that her assertion that she wasn’t really writing a series per se at all but disjointed novels was also a lie. Robert Galbraith and J.K. Rowling’s fictional detective series is hotter than ever, and there’s no end in sight. Here’s what we know about the next novel, Cormoran Strike Book 6! Rowling-Galbraith decided not to hand over adaptation rights to her Cormoran Strike stories to someone else’s teevee studio or to one of the Hollywood corporations. I think she did this because her experience in her “collaborations” with Warner Brothers have been for the most part disappointing, not to say “humiliating” for her; see Kloves’ comments about their having to “fit the lady to the dress” in making her Fantastic Beasts screenplay into a film. Rowling does not count her screenplays among the books she wrote and has said she does not consider the Potter films to be creative projects for which she can claim any kind of credit (an opinion she shares when told by a fan that they love the movies). News Publications J.K. Rowling reveals the title for the seventh book in the Cormoran Strike series: THE RUNNING GRAVE January 12, 2023The author has previously said that she intends for there to be many books in the Cormoran Strike series, so there’s no doubt that Book 6 is going to happen. It’s only a question of when.

Strike Extended Play’ or ‘How a Seven Book Series Can Be ‘Strike Extended Play’ or ‘How a Seven Book Series Can Be

Still, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this, despite the feeling of slight mental indigestion. Strike and Robin remain solid, convincingly drawn characters – the best duo in detective fiction since ­Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe – however garrulous their biographer has become. I think all of Rowling’s comments about the length of the Strike series have to be filed away until there is any solid evidence they contain any truth of sufficient substance to comment on. So are we to believe there are ten books that have been plotted — or the textual evidence of a seven book cycle, a parallel series with the Hogwarts Saga, and the possibility there may be more (but not necessarily!) or as many or as few as the author claims? I’m going to count this contribution as a ‘Yes’ vote for Strike EP rather than as disappointment with Strike6 or with those of us who were so mistaken in creating expectations of what it would hold.It’s worth noting that there is also a poem by Dylan Thomas titled “When Like a Running Grave” which could also be used as a reference for the title.

New Galbraith book, The Running Grave | Robert Galbraith

Beyond Book 6, Rowling is expected to write at least a couple more Cormoran Strike books before wrapping up the beloved whodunit series.

Whatever the true meaning behind the title and clue may be, one thing is certain – fans of the Cormoran Strike series are eagerly anticipating the release of “ The Running Grave” and the new case that it will bring for the private detective to solve. Rowling-Galbraith has presented a moving target with respect to how many books will be in the Strike series. When she was first out-ed as Galbraith, reporters were told it was a seven book series which the author and publishers have been denying ever since, despite the significant textual evidence that the first seven books in this collection will work as a set or ‘ring.’