“Strike’s Chickens are Coming Home to Roost”: A peek inside the Doom Bar Detective’s henhouse.

By Guest Post

By Louise M. Freeman

One of my favorite topics is the humor in both the Harry Potter and Cormoran Strike series. Although the realistic Strike series is not as equipped for regular laughs as is the Wizarding world (read more here, here, and here), there are certainly great laugh-out-loud moments, from farcical elements (death threats arriving in kitten-bedecked envelopes) to Barclay’s ever-ready wisecracks (“Sherlock Bigcock, I presume?”), to Strike’s tension-breaking jokes (“Maybe you should put that on your next employee satisfaction review. ’Not as bloody annoying as the woman who shagged by husband.’ I’ll have it framed,”)  we readers regularly get to laugh along with our fictional heroes and our fellow fans. Honestly, one of the disappointing aspects of The Hallmarked Man was the relative lack of humor, particularly between Strike and Robin, given that they were on the outs for so much of the book. Even the moments we got, like Lucy’s hilariously awful Christmas party, had a significant cringe factor. Previous books have had a lot of banter that made us wish we were there; in The Hallmarked Man we often laughed because we were relieved that we weren’t. 

Harry Potter, of course, became such a huge phenomenon that other creators started producing parody media, from videos like Potter’s Puppet Pals to full theatrical productions like Potted Potter and Puffs. While these creations clearly poke a bit of fun at the Potterverse, they are created by fans, for the enjoyment of fans, both between and after the books and movies. Genuinely clever humor requires genuine love for the original product. 

So far, Cormoran Strike has not achieved the fan base necessary for professionally produced parody media, but there are plenty of fans creating their own online content to share and enjoy between books. Take, for example, “Why the Sofa Farts,”  a hilarious bit of fan-fiction giving the late great Farting Sofa’s take on books 1-6.  There are also some parody Twitter accounts from a variety of Strike supporting characters, from Lucy to Ciara Porter to a Deadbeats account which is apparently maintained by the notorious Peter Gillespie. @SuperkingPatC’s is the most consistently active, though I have a special fondness for master potter @Mrs_Hook12. 

So, when the Harpy Eagles of the Strike and Ellacott Files were chatting about Strike’s “chickens coming home to roost” in last week’s podcast and issued a challenge for listeners to find pictures of chickens that looked like Cormoran Strike’s assorted girlfriends, I had to give it a try.  Thus, I present to you, Cormoran Strike’s Henhouse, featuring every bird he slept with during the series to date, and a couple with whom he hasn’t. 

Charlotte Campell (a.k.a. Milady Berzerko and ex-Viscountess of Croy) was dark, tall and monochromatically elegant, by far the most beautiful woman Strike has ever seen. She was also, per Dave Polworth, “f*cked to the core.”  This Black Sumatra chicken is runway-ready, with its long black tail feathers both turning heads and rendering it perpetually off-balance. Though Strike broke up with her shortly before The Cuckoo’s Calling opened, she’s a perpetual presence, with her shade lingering even after her suicide. 

Of course, it was a mistake for a Black Sumatra chicken to marry a dissolute arctic fox, even if he is a Viscount, right?

Ciara Porter, the alabaster-fair supermodel who got a literature degree from Cambridge in her spare time, was Strike’s one-night stand in The Cuckoo’s Calling. This white hen, sleek, perky and ornamental, seemed to fit her. While she seemed pretty cool in the first book and was nice enough to laugh in the faces of tabloid journalists in The Running Grave, she turned up again at God’s Own Junkyard in The Hallmarked Man, repeating Charlotte’s horrible “PP” nickname for Robin. 

Strike claimed not to fancy small women, but that didn’t stop him from shagging Roper Chard editor Nina Lascelles three times in The Silkworm, twice as thanks for insider information on Bombyx Mori and Owen Quine, and once as a distraction from Charlotte’s wedding to Jago Ross. This choice made trouble for him in The Hallmarked Man, when her cousin Dominic Culpepper decided to trash Strike’s reputation in the tabloid press. Like this little Bantam, the Honorable Ms. Lascelles favored strappy black evening wear and was quick to challenge any lower-class dude she thought might be trying to gate-crash her party. 

Elin Toft, former violinist, wealthy BBC presenter and Cormoran’s girlfriend during most of Career of Evil was also fair and beautiful like Ciara, but I pictured her with much bigger hair and fluffier plumage, making this fancy albino chicken the obvious choice. 

In Lethal White, disgruntled that Robin chose to go on her honeymoon with Matthew, Strike drinks nine cans of lager and has an ill-advised one-night stand with Coco, Wardle’s wife’s best friend and a burlesque dancer with tomato-red hair, who was difficult to shake off afterwards. This Rhode Island Red seemed persistent, and also like the type to dump a glass of wine over the next chicken in our flock if she tries to swipe the rooster on which she’s set her eyes.

In addition to delivering the best parting line of any of Strike’s girlfriends, Lorelei Bevins was known for her jewel-toned vintage wardrobe and for wearing her hair over her eyes. She was Strike’s longest post-Charlotte relationship, dating him for about a year in Lethal White, but, when she asked him if he wanted the relationship badly enough to “try another way,” the answer was “no.”

Jewelry designer Madeline Courson-Miles looked a lot like Robin with her red-gold hair, but was very thin, relatively flat-chested and a mean drunk. Convinced Robin was repulsed by him after the Ritz, Strike kissed Madeline at a club on a New Year’s Eve to console himself over Robin’s jetting off to Zermatt with Hugh Jacks. He dated her for a few months in The Ink Black Heart but ditched her after perpetual jealousy over Robin and a lot of sh*t- stirring by Charlotte. Her stiletto heels could deliver a very painful kick. 

Even though Strike never slept with Marguerite, it wasn’t for her lack of trying. After a failed attempt by Lucy to match-make them in The Silkworm, she re-appeared at the dreadful Christmas party in The Hallmarked Man, delighted to find Strike single again, so I had to include her. This bird’s outfit seems the closest to a silver caftan that a chicken can achieve and it absolutely seems to be trying too hard to make itself attractive. 

Finally, no collection of Strike’s women-as-chickens would be complete without Bijou Watkins, a.k.a. “Her with the Fake Tits” and “Man-hungry Pain-in-the-arse.”  She crashed Benjamin Herbert’s christening and had two quickies (one standing up against a wall) with Strike in The Running Grave, which led to an angst-producing paternity test in The Hallmarked Man. 

So, do I have a chicken representing Robin Ellacott?  Of course not. She and Cormoran Strike are the swans destined to swim alongside each other. 

I hope you enjoyed these little nuggets of humor. 

Louise M. Freeman is a retired psychology professor and a licensed behavior analyst. Her writings on Strike, Potter and other books can be found at The Farting Sofa Faculty Lounge, at www.fartingsofafaculty.substack.com. 

By Guest Post