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Goodreads Reviews: Cormoran Strike # 6 - The Ink Black Heart

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Did you think that an online game moderator who's entire being is completely anonymous to the whole world could be the stuff of nightmares? I didn't think so.

Then I met Anomie. The the co-creator of Drek's Game which was inspired by the YouTube series, The Ink Black Heart created by artists Edie Ledwell and Joshua Bly. After their successful cartoon takes the world by storm, Edie and Josh are walking the road of success. However, success begins to demand a heavy price.

Edie Ledwell seeks Robin's help to track down a Twitter troll named Anomie, a superfan of The Ink Black Heart who has made it his mission to terrorize Edie online for her supposed disregard for the game he created due to her genius story. Never having done a cyber case before, Robin has no choice but to turn Edie down.

A week later, Edie is murdered and Joshua Bly is badly injured and Anomie is the primary suspect. But who is Anomie? A male or female? Teenager or middle aged? A superfan or a psychopath? It's hard to track down a murderer when their presence is only through cryptic Twitter messages and chat room conversations.

Edie Ledwell had no shortage of enemies and anyone of them that has any interest in playing the online game, could be a possible suspect. Robin, Strike and their team must research, survey and take into account every motion of each suspect to apprehend Anomie. Yet, Anomie is one of the most elusive, clever and maniacal suspects Strike and Robin have ever had to deal with. As his growing madness deepens, no one is safe until his identity is finally revealed.

Robert Galbraith completely nailed the toxic fan syndrome phenomenon in The Ink Black Heart. Anything can have a good start, but when people get in too deep, become too passionate and lose sight of reality, detrimental actions can't always be avoided. The delusional behavior of Anomie isn't made up. His toxicity is seen everyday in people who worship any form of media, whether it's music, television, books, actors, etc. Lives have been damaged, relationships broken, years of hard work wasted because fans are incapable of returning to the real world.

That alone is one of the reasons why I enjoyed the book so much. There was so much truth in what was being written about the fans of this online series and how it only mirrors the reality of our social media obsessed culture.