C.B. Strike Season 6 Is Here: Is the New Chapter Based on JK Rowling's Book Any Good?
This is a book that is almost impossible to translate to the screen.
It's been more than ten years since the publication of The Cuckoo's Calling, and the existence of JK Rowling's detective series continues to surprise even the most devoted Harry Potter fans.
Under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, the author publishes a series of books about retired military man Cormoran Strike and his partner in a private investigation agency, Robin Ellacott. As in many other procedurals, the focus is not only on the investigation, but also on the dynamics of the relationship between the detectives.
Cormoran and Robin are an example of the will-they-won't-they trope: people destined for each other can't admit their strong feelings.
Perhaps the sixth novel in the series, The Ink Black Heart, is the most difficult to adapt to the screen, and perhaps even the most unsuitable for television.
What Is The Ink Black Heart Book About?
The events of the book take place in 2014. The date on the calendar is important because most of the investigation in the novel takes place online – in a game based on the cult animation The Ink Black Heart, which was created by fans.
The Internet is a substance that changes too quickly, some messengers displace others, so the date determines the nature of events. While watching the series, it sometimes seems that the action is stuck in an ambiguous era without any specific signs.
Edie Ledwell, artist and creator of The Ink Black Heart, has been stalked and threatened online for several years.
Robin can't fit the search for the malicious anonymous person into her schedule and suggests that the woman contact cyber investigators. And yet, Edie's case ends up at Strike's agency, but after the artist's murder.
The Ink Black Heart Is Difficult to Translate to the Screen Without Destroying the Main Concept
The complexity of the novel lies not only in its size – more than a thousand pages – but also in its format.
A significant part of the narrative is taken up by the chats of the moderators of the game, which allows the reader to stay one step ahead of the investigators and gradually delve into the difficult relationships of the anonymous users.
Although the correspondence was sometimes difficult to read, translating the dialogues to the screen proved to be an impossible task for the show's screenwriter. It was decided to abandon online altogether and return to proven offline methods.
C.B. Strike Season 6 Is The One You Might Want To Skip
When we talk about the series as an adaptation, and not as an independent detective show, the conventional old-fashioned format of conducting a case through interrogations and surveillance breaks with the concept of the novel – in its own way unwieldy, but still specific in its desire to bite into the anonymity and permissiveness of the Internet.
The Ink Black Heart seems to be a complete failure, justifying its right to exist only by the overwhelming charisma of the actors and the disarming chemistry between Holliday Grainger and Tom Burke.