The Running Grave

The Running Grave is a crime fiction novel written by J. K. Rowling, and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It was published 26 September 2023. It is the seventh novel in the Cormoran Strike series.

Plot
Sir Colin Edensor, a retired civil servant, approaches Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott's detective agency seeking assistance extricating his son Will from the Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC), which has been deemed a cult by critics but claims to be a benevolent charity. Will, who has autism, had joined the church and cut off all contact with his family, not even responding to his mother's death, and was believed to be living on a farm (Chapman Farm near Aylmerton in Norfolk) operated by the church and serving as its headquarters.

As Strike reads about the UHC, he realises that it was formed on the site of a 1960s to 1980s commune, the Aylmerton Community, one of the places Strike and his half-sister Lucy lived as children, as their mother Leda Strike drifted around the country. The commune had closed after its leaders were arrested for child sexual abuse, but Strike had not himself been abused in this manner, though he still intensely dislikes the place. When he talks to Lucy about his plans to investigate the church and mentions the location, she has an even more negative reaction than he expects; she reveals that she was sexually assaulted as a child on the farm and was led to her abuser by a girl named Mazu, who is now one of the UHC's leaders.

Robin volunteers to infiltrate the UHC, getting a makeover as somebody with "more money than sense". Meanwhile, both detectives find former church members to interview, and dig up records of incidents connected to the church; there have been several mysterious deaths in the past, including the drowning of a 7-year-old girl in 1995: Daiyu, Mazu's daughter, who is now regarded as the "Drowned Prophet", central to the church's mythology. There are several other deceased church members also regarded as prophets.

After attending services at the UHC temple in London, Robin, in her identity as "Rowena Ellis", is invited to a retreat at Chapman Farm. Strike and the agency staff and contractors work out a system to keep in touch with her at the farm; they set up a fake hollow rock they will check to exchange notes with her. As planned, she joins the church in a baptism ceremony at the end of the retreat. She finds out that Will Edensor, who is living on the farm as expected, has fathered a daughter, named Qing by Mazu who owns the naming rights to children born on the farm, with a teenage girl named Lin there. Church members are under pressure to have sex with other members (termed "spirit bonding"). All forms of birth control are banned there and pregnancy is encouraged.

While Robin is on the farm, Strike continues finding and interviewing people connected with the UHC, as well as dealing with other cases including the stalking of an actress, Tasha Mayo. Other issues come up with the agency and Strike's personal life; a subcontractor, Clive Littlejohn, is found to be a "double agent" of a competing agency; Strike's uncle Ted, whose wife Joan recently died, is diagnosed with dementia and is increasingly unable to live on his own; Strike's brief sexual dalliance with attorney Bijou Watkins drags him into the middle of a scandal resulting from her affair with another prominent attorney; and Strike's ex-fiancee Charlotte keeps trying to get back into his life, this time telling him she has cancer.

On the farm, Robin talks to other members about what happened there in the past, relaying findings to the agency weekly via the hollow rock. While hiding in a barn, she finds Polaroid pictures featuring people in pig masks doing sexual acts, and puts them in the hollow rock the following week. She also stumbles onto a mysterious clearing with the remains of posts that have been cut off, and learns that there is a tree in the forest with a rusty hatchet in its roots.

After waking in a hotel near the beach where Daiyu drowned, after a day of interviewing people who witnessed it, Strike finds out that Charlotte has killed herself. He is racked with conflicting emotions of guilt and anger, and ends up going towards a tower in the distance, which he remembers (from his childhood on the commune) as visible from the farm where Robin is now; it resembled a chess rook, but he never knew what it was. It turns out to be a church, and Strike enters it and has a mental conversation with Charlotte, emerging in a more peaceful state.

Robin goes with a group of UHC members to Norwich to collect donations for the church. While there, she mistakenly responds to somebody yelling, "Robin!" actually a child referring to a stuffed bird, which is noticed by another church member and possibly compromises her identity. Right after this, Emily Pirbright, who is also with the group, runs away. Robin finds her in a toy shop, and has a talk with her before returning with her to the group because Emily has decided not to run away from the church, being still indoctrinated with church doctrine even if being at odds with the leaders. However, Emily tells Robin that she is certain that Daiyu did not drown, and she believes her to still be alive.

After luring Will into the Retreat Room (for "spirit bonding") Robin breaks the news of his mother's death which he never received with his letters being censored by the church principals. At the ceremony for the apparition of the Drowned Prophet, Robin gets dragged under in the baptismal pool and nearly drowns. Jonathan Wace insists this is because she made the prophet angry by her behaviour with Will; as punishment she is locked in a wooden box for eight hours. After being let out, Robin is sent to look after an ill child called Jacob who she thinks is dying. That evening, Robin, pretending to need the bathroom, runs for the blind spot where Strike is waiting, according to plan as Robin had not written back that week and the rock was gone. Strike beats up Robin's pursuers and escapes with her in the car to a nearby lodge he checked into earlier. They report the dying Jacob to the local police.

Later that week, Robin is invited by the Metropolitan Police for a voluntary interview, where she learns that she has been accused of child sexual abuse by the church. Strike and Robin continue to update Colin Edensor and interview former members of the church, including Carrie Woods (as Cherie Gittins is now known), who insists Daiyu Wace drowned when she took her to the beach. Carrie commits suicide hours later.

Days later, Will turns up at the agency's office with his daughter, having escaped the farm. Will intends to hand himself to the police once Lin, who was transferred from the farm after miscarrying, is safe. He reveals that Jacob died a few days after Robin's escape. Pat and her husband Dennis take care of Will and Qing at their house while Midge and grateful client Tash find Lin at the church's medical centre near London and try to release her. Robin arranges an interview between Will and fellow former UHC member Flora Brewster, who convinces Will that the Drowned Prophet, who he still fears, is not real when she reveals the church's "Divine Secrets" without dying.

Strike and Robin then discuss their findings with all their police contacts. The next day, Robin interviews Carrie Woods's ex-boyfriend in prison, confirming both Robin's and Strike's suspicions regarding Daiyu Wace's death. He remembers Carrie, mostly when in a drunken state, revealing that the drowning incident was merely a cover-up, and he agrees to testify. Back at the office, Strike breaks the news the police have raided Chapman Farm and the Church's Birmingham centre, which was used as a base for trafficking surplus babies, born to UHC members, for adoption. Robin then goes to the church's London temple to pursue Becca. Meanwhile Strike confronts Abigail Glover, where he deduces that she murdered her stepsister Daiyu, jealous of the attention she got from her parents, chopped up her body to feed to the pigs in a makeshift pen in the woods, and faked her drowning. He also deduces that she owned the Polaroid camera used to take the pig mask images. At the temple, Robin finds Mazu Wace, who tries to kill her with a gun before Midge intervenes.

In the epilogue, it is revealed that Jonathan Wace has been arrested trying to drive across the United States border into Mexico, Mazu insists that she is still the mother of the Drowned Prophet despite all evidence to the contrary, and Becca remains faithful to the now discredited UHC. Will is reunited with Lin and his family and has renamed his daughter Sally in honour of his late mother. Strike has one last meeting with Charlotte's sister Amelia, where they discuss Charlotte blaming everyone in her suicide note. Just before Robin leaves for a trip with her boyfriend Ryan Murphy, Strike confesses his love for her while discussing Charlotte's suicide and his meeting with Amelia.

Main

 * Cormoran Strike – A private detective. He is a minor celebrity, thanks in part to his rock star father and his solving of high-profile murders. He is also a war veteran who lost his leg in an explosion. He is now making an effort to lose weight, improve his diet, and switch from smoking to vaping, after previously having more unhealthy habits.
 * Robin Ellacott – Strike's former assistant, now business partner, trained in criminal investigation. She is a survivor of a rape and attempted murder, and her current task of infiltrating a cult brings her unsettlingly close to similar activity.

Recurring

 * Pat Chauncey – The agency's office manager, a chain-smoker who has also shifted to vaping, like Strike.
 * Sam Barclay – An excellent Scottish contract investigator
 * Michelle "Midge" Greenstreet – A former Greater Manchester Police officer turned contract investigator who is lesbian and excellent at baking.
 * Dev Shah – A contract investigator
 * Charlotte Campbell Ross – Strike's neurotic and unstable ex-fiancée, a beautiful socialite and supermodel, whose issues worsen in this instalment of the series.
 * Lucy – Strike's maternal half sister, who has three sons. Strike is fond of the middle son, Jack. Lucy reveals a terrible secret to Strike about their time on the Aylmerton Ranch as children.
 * Ted Nancarrow – Strike and Lucy's maternal uncle, who is developing traits of Alzheimer's disease.
 * Prudence Donleavy – Strike's paternal half-sister.
 * Nick Herbert – An old London school friend of Strike's, now a gastroenterologist.
 * Ilsa Herbert – An old classmate of Strike's, now a lawyer and married to Nick. Strike and Robin are godparents to their son Benjy.
 * "Shanker" – Nickname of a former flatmate of Strike. He is willing to help Strike and Robin with just about anything in return for money.
 * Eric Wardle - a police detective inspector who shares information with Strike.
 * Ryan Murphy – a CID officer romantically involved with Robin, much to Strike's jealousy.
 * Fergus Robertson - a journalist who sometimes shares information with Strike.

Other characters

 * Clive Littlejohn - A suspiciously quiet subcontractor of the detective agency, formerly employed by a competing agency.
 * Sir Colin Edensor, a retired civil servant who hires Strike and Ellacott's agency to investigate the Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC) and get their son out of it
 * Will Edensor, autistic son of Sir Colin, who has joined the UHC and is living on its farm, refusing contact with his family
 * Kevin Pirbright, a former member of the UHC who was writing a book exposing it as a cult, but died of a gunshot before it was published
 * Louise Pirbright, mother of Kevin, still a member of the UHC living on the farm
 * Becca Pirbright, sister of Kevin, high-status UHC member
 * Emily Pirbright, other sister of Kevin, with lower church status than Becca
 * Jonathan Wace, the manipulative founder and leader of the UHC, known as "Papa J" to other members
 * Jennifer Wace, Jonathan's first wife, who drowned back in the '80s
 * Mazu Wace, the sinister and dreaded wife of Jonathan, one of the UHC leaders; lived on the farm before it was a church, when it was a commune (the Aylmerton Community) which ended when its leaders were arrested for child sexual abuse
 * Daiyu Wace, daughter of Mazu who was said to have drowned at age 7 in 1995 on the same beach as Jennifer Wace, being known as the "Drowned Prophet" afterward and becoming a major part of the UHC belief system
 * Taio Wace, son of Jonathan, high-status UHC member who enforces the church's rules on other members
 * Jiang Wace, son of Jonathan, with lower status in the church than some of his other children
 * Cherie Gittins (birth name Carine Makepeace, also known as Cherry Curtis and Carrie Curtis Woods), who reportedly took Daiyu swimming the day she drowned, then left the church soon after
 * Abigail Glover, daughter of Jonathan and Jennifer Wace, now a firefighter
 * Patrick, lodger of Abigail; London Tube driver
 * Barry Saxon, friend of Patrick and Abigail; also a Tube driver; frequently got drunk with the two of them and heard a lot of things they had to say about Abigail's past in the church
 * Alex Graves, church member who hanged himself after being removed from farm by his family; willed his money to Daiyu because he believed himself to be her father, though Papa J claimed that status himself
 * Dr. Zhou, doctor for the UHC, who also has a clinic outside the church that engages in various alternative treatments
 * Noli Seymour, actress who is a member of the UHC
 * Giles Harmon, novelist who is a member of the UHC
 * Ralph Doherty, former church member who left
 * Deirdre Doherty, wife of Ralph, gave birth to Lin while in UHC and living on farm, stayed longer than Ralph but was expelled later; claimed to be raped by Jonathan Wace
 * Lin Doherty, daughter of Deirdre, stayed on farm, and later had relations with Will Edensor resulting in a child, Qing (later renamed Sally).
 * Niamh Doherty, daughter of Ralph and Deirdre, was in the church from ages eight to eleven
 * Sheila Kennett, who lived at the UHC's farm in its early days
 * Kurt Jordan Reaney, ex-UHC-member who is now in prison
 * Henry Worthington-Fields, who attended a UHC retreat at age 18 but left after a week; brought Flora Brewster with him and she stayed; acquaintance of Charlotte Campbell Ross
 * Flora Brewster, a former church member who had mental problems after she left the church
 * Jacob Messenger, reality show contestant who went to prison for driving while on drugs and causing injury, then was briefly involved in the UHC after leaving prison; declined offer to attend retreat at farm
 * Lucas Messenger, Jacob's brother, not in the church
 * Shawna, church member living on the farm who Robin gets to know; very talkative, but not so smart
 * Leonard and Shelley Heaton, couple who were witnesses at the inquest regarding Daiyu's drowning because they were near the beach at the time
 * Belinda "Bijou" Watkins, an attorney with whom Strike had a brief sexual relationship, dragging him into a scandal caused by her affair with a prominent married attorney
 * Tasha Mayo, actress who is a client of the agency suffering from a pair of stalkers. Strike later suspects her of being romantically involved with Midge

Reception
The Running Grave sold 50,925 copies in its first week on sale in the UK, placing it first on the UK Official Top 50 book sales list.

Joan Smith, writing in The Times, says the book reveals Rowling's "extraordinary resilience" to remain in the public eye after suffering "vicious abuse", and also shows her "intense sympathy for the underdog". Jake Kerridge from The Daily Telegraph rated the book 3 out of 5 stars, calling it "some of her most gripping writing yet" but asking "did it have to be so long?" Laura Wilson, writing in The Guardian, says it could have had some "judicious trimming" but was still "an immersive, and, for the most part, riveting read."