When JK Rowling said last December that she could write a lengthy dissertation on Strike’s sex appeal, I figured that we here at The Strike & Ellacott Files might be able to help her out with that! Anyone who has listened to our podcast knows that this is a subject that’s very near and dear to our hearts and one we take very seriously. (Yes, I’m mostly kidding, but also not really.) While it won’t be written nearly as nicely as it would if JK Rowling HAD actually written it, I like to think that we somewhat understand what she’s going for when it comes to why women (both fictional characters in the books and my fellow Strike readers) often find him so attractive.
Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat: we all know that Cormoran Strike isn’t perfect. The truth is, I don’t think any readers would want him to be. I’ve always thought that one of the reasons JK Rowling’s characters resonate so well with many of us is because she understands and portrays human nature in a way that’s hard to find anywhere else. She once said that Strike is a flawed man, but a good man. His flaws make him human and highly relatable. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever related to another fictional character more than I have to Strike and often, it’s because of those flaws. Watching him over the course of the seven books we currently have, growing and learning from his mistakes, is not only endearing (and adds to the appeal), but it’s also inspiring. He’s a character you want to root for.
Robin’s Thoughts:
To kick off this highly important list, I always like to start at one of my favorite chapters in Troubled Blood. (Yes, I’m aware that sentence makes it sound like I give this talk often and the truth is that…I kind of do.) When Robin goes to Leamington Spa by herself in an attempt to locate a witness, she finds herself contemplating her feelings in the Old Library pub. This chapter, which strongly reflects chapter 40 of Career of Evil (see blog here), has Robin thinking about all the things she loves likes about her partner.
“She trusted him on the big things: to do the right thing for the right reasons. She admired his brains and appreciated his doggedness, not to mention the self-discipline all the more admirable because many whole-bodied men had never mastered it. She was often astonished by his almost total lack of self-pity. She loved the drive for justice that she shared, that unbreakable determination to settle and to solve.” (Troubled Blood, chapter 45)
In addition to the above, Robin also thinks about the highly unusual experience she’s had in that in the years she has known Strike he has never once made her feel uncomfortable. I once responded to a comment on Twitter (I’m sorry, I’m still being stubborn about the name) by saying that Robin’s thoughts in this chapter explain why so many of us love Strike. These are all the reasons that make him a good man…and being a good man is sexy. I will also add that JK Rowling liked a comment I made on May 24, 2023 about this very chapter, so I like to think that means she agrees.
Justice:
Strike’s sense of justice is one of my favorite things about him. The man has BDE: Big Detective Energy. If you don’t love him by chapter 4 of The Cuckoo’s Calling when it says that justice is the “…pilot light Strike shielded when everything else had been blown to ashes..” surely you did by the time he was being compared to Artegall, the champion of true justice, in Troubled Blood? You can tell that both Strike and Robin truly care about getting justice for the people they’re trying to help. You might think that that’s common for people who are detectives, but I can tell you from experience that it isn’t. I worked for a PI for three years and there were times when I saw decisions being made that were not about justice, but about what was easiest or would make more money. Strike as the modern day champion of true justice means a great deal to my Hufflepuff heart!
Care For the Vulnerable:
One thing that is deeply appealing about Strike is the glimpses we’re given into how much he cares for vulnerable people. Pools has pointed out that when Strike interviews a woman who lives alone, he always makes sure to show her his ID. In fact, in one instance, he tells Edna, Leonora Quine’s neighbor and only friend, that “you ought to ask to see ID before you let anyone into your house.” It’s such a small thing that you might not even notice, but it’s a huge deal for women’s safety and Strike takes the time to make sure they feel safe in his presence.
You can pretty much use the entire book of The Silkworm as an example of this when it comes to his relationship with Leonora Quine. One part that I always find so touching, no matter how many times I read it, is when Strike asks Leonora about money.
“And are you all right for money?”
“Yeah,” she said, blotting her eyes. “Owen had life insurance. I made him take it out, cos of Orlando. So we’ll be all right. Edna’s offered to lend me till it comes through.”
“Then I’ll be off,” said Strike, pushing himself back to his feet.” (The Silkworm, Chapter 21)
Strike doesn’t have a lot of money in The Silkworm. He’s struggling to afford all the lunches he’s attending interviewing all those book people and trying to save money by not taking taxis. And yet he asks, because Leonora and Orlando might have needed it. *swoon*
The more I think about it, the more I realize what a huge compliment it was when Robin told Strike that Leonora Quine was ‘his type’ of client. Robin saw a woman who really needed help and knew that Strike was going to take her case because he does the right things for the right reasons.
There are also the times where he was going to give up his flat to Will and Qing [The Running Grave], defended the Athorns to the man downstairs [Troubled Blood], or was so upset when he couldn’t save Stephanie from Whittaker [Career of Evil] (although, that one does have more complications than the others!)
Big Dad Energy
Strike has been clear, from the beginning, that he doesn’t want children, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be a good father. In fact, I think what we’ve seen of him shows that he would be a really good dad. Pools has pointed out many times that Strike takes fatherhood very seriously. He knows what it’s like to not have a father, to have the man who is supposed to love and raise you, tell you you’re a mistake. He’s witnessed Rokeby beaming with Pride over Al and seen Lucy’s father be part of her life growing up, while he was “…the small boy who would once have sold his soul to receive a birthday card from his father.” (Troubled Blood, Chapter 19)
It’s true that Strike has a complicated relationship with some of the children in his life. He has little to no interest in his godson, Timothy Cormoran Anstis, and has referred to two of his nephews as a ‘whiny prick’ and an ‘arsehole’, but we’ve seen that he truly does care about his family. The only time we’ve seen him cry was at Jack’s hospital bed when he resolved to do better. His relationship with Jack is unique and endearing. Here are some of my favorite moments that just scream BDE to me (Big Dad Energy, obviously!):
“Jack was making his soldier fire around the back of the sofa and Strike was pretending to have taken a bullet to the stomach.” (The Cuckoo’s Calling, Part 3: Chapter 1)
“Can I try some of that beer?” he asked his uncle.
“Don’t push it,” said Strike. (Troubled Blood, Chapter 44)
‘Bloody hell,’ said Strike. ‘You’ve grown about eight inches since I last saw you.’
‘Be weird if I’d shrunk,’ said Jack, grinning. ‘You’re thinner.’
‘Yeah, well, I needed shrinking,’ said Strike, wiping his feet on the doormat. (The Running Grave, Chapter 11)
Threatening Bad Men
Another thing we all really like and find very sexy is when Strike threatens bad men! While anyone with basic reading comprehension knows that Strike is a good man, there are some really awful men in these books, and it is so incredibly satisfying to read Strike threatening to cut their dicks off or burn their church to the ground! We love to see it!
So much time of The Ink Black Heart is about a horrible pedophile grooming, manipulating, and ruining poor Zoe’s life, that I cheered out loud when Strike threatened to perform his own very special amputation. I like to imagine that Tim Ashcroft (the pedophile) lived in fear of Cormoran Strike for a good while after that.
There’s also the chapter in The Running Grave in which he threatens Jonathan Wace and tells him that he’ll “burn his church to the fucking ground” if he comes near Robin or Rosie Fernsby. Kenz maintains this chapter is the sexiest Strike has ever been and, I have to say, she has a point! I was absolutely terrified reading this chapter.. Robin was really scared for Strike to go see Wace and, because we had experienced the cult with her, I totally empathised with her fear. Strike being so unafraid and unmoved, and nonchalantly antagonizing the UHC members was incredibly attractive!
Intelligence:
Robin thinks in chapter 45 of Troubled Blood that she “admires his brains…” and all I have to say is, “Girl, same.” There’s no questioning that Strike is extremely intelligent. This is a man who taught himself Latin as a teenager and has outsmarted the police numerous times. My all time favorite example of this is when he interviews Creed at the end of Troubled Blood. It has to be difficult to interview a serial killer in the first place, but to interview a smart serial killer who is hell bent on messing with you is a whole new level of difficulty. And yet Strike was calm, cool, and collected. If Dumbledore was alive today (and real in this world) he’d be giving Strike fifty points for the best played game of mental chess that prison had ever seen!
“Strike turned back one last time, and now he stopped pretending to be angry, and grinned, too.
“I was here for Louise, you silly fucker. I know you never met Margot Bamborough. She was murdered by a far more skillful killer than you ever were. And just so you know,” Strike added, as the nurse’s keys jangled, and Creed’s slack, fat face registered dismay, “I think you’re a fucking lunatic, and if anyone asks me, I’ll say you should be in Broadmoor till you rot.” (Troubled Blood, Chapter 68)
Romantic:
No matter how much Strike tells himself that he likes to be free “from demands to service Hallmark’s idea of romance…” the man is a romantic when his heart is in it. ‘When his heart is in it’ is an important condition because, of course, we don’t see his romantic side with any of the women we’ve seen him date, but I think we see it in some of his history with Charlotte (hello Catullus) and we definitely see it with Robin even though they’re not a couple…yet. For God’s sake, the man kissed the back of her hand after giving her the surveillance course she wanted and making her his partner! As Pools says, a hand kiss is peak romance!
Troubled Blood has a lot of wonderful examples, including one of the most romantic endings of any of the books so far, but there are also the smaller and less grand gestures like building her bookcase in The Ink Black Heart, or sitting in her chair when he’s missing her in The Running Grave.
Thinking about what romantic gestures might be awaiting us now that Strike knows he’s in love, has confessed that love, and wants something real, might just put me in an early grave.
Relationship with Robin:
“If only she could come inside his head and see what was there, Strike thought, she’d understand that she occupied a unique place in his thoughts and in his affections.” (Troubled Blood, Chapter 58)
I’m not going to argue that Strike always treats Robin 100% correctly all the time, because of course he doesn’t. He acts like most of us do with the person we’re closest to and sometimes takes things out on her, or is unfair or grumpy. However, I will argue that Strike (especially in recent books) treats Robin with dignity and respect.
I will go back to Robin’s thoughts in Leamington Spa where she thinks that he’s never made her feel uncomfortable. Every woman reading these books knows exactly what Robin is talking about, and we’ve all experienced the men who don’t act like Strike. It’s deeply endearing that Strike is #notallbeards.
After Robin escapes the UHC and she and Strike are in the hotel room, I find Strike’s unnecessary tidying up and rearranging of his possessions to distract himself from thoughts of Robin naked in the shower incredibly adorable;. as are his worries that someone will think he’s taking advantage of her if they shared the bed. Not a soul would know if he didn’t tidy up. No one would know if he sat there, listening to the shower running and pictured the thing he was trying not to picture. But he doesn’t. I know a lot of fans like to joke about Strike and Robin having sexy thoughts about each other, but I take this as a very clear sign that he doesn’t allow himself to cross that line even in his own head. Although, once he’s given permission by Robin, I do hope to see some sexy thoughts! (From both of them!)
Another thing I love about Strike’s treatment of Robin is how he is so happy for her to take her place as his true partner. We see when she interviews Rachel Ledwell in The Ink Black Heart that he’s not upset at all by Robin asking him to sit that one out.
“He hadn’t been offended by Robin suggesting that it was best that he – a bulky six- foot-three male, whose resting expression he knew to be stern, bordering on threatening – didn’t attend the interview with a frightened teenage girl, but as he ordered a coffee and resisted the temptation to ask for a scone, his thoughts lingered on the way Robin had taken charge of this particular line of inquiry. If he was absolutely honest with himself, this was the first time he’d seen her as a true partner, an equal. She’d secured the interview through her own ingenuity, then taken charge of how the interview was to unfold, telling him, effectively, that he was surplus to requirements. He wasn’t annoyed; on the contrary, he was almost amused by his relegation to a waiting role at a circular table in the airy café overlooking the sweeping lawns of Meanwood Park.” (The Ink Black Heart, Chapter 82)
Physical Traits
We know that Strike is described as ‘not handsome’ in The Cuckoo’s Calling or ‘not nearly as handsome as…’ in Troubled Blood, but it doesn’t really matter when you’re reading a book, does it? The character becomes attractive because of who they are. That’s all you have to really go on. Having said that, it seems clear to me that while Strike might not be handsome, he’s certainly attractive to a lot of women in the books.
“Women liked Strike—she had come to realize that over the months they had worked together. She had not understood the appeal when she had started working for him. He was so very different from Matthew.” (Career of Evil, Chapter 20)
Please note that Robin had not understood the appeal “when she had started working for him” which implies to me that, by the time she thinks this in Career of Evil, she very much understands the appeal!
‘I never found him remotely sexy,’ said Robin, but then the spirit of truthfulness unleashed by the champagne forced her to add, ‘Not for ages.’ (The Ink Black Heart, Chapter 28)
‘Ages’ to Robin is apparently less than a year.
The thing is, none of the things we like about Strike’s appearance (and you all know there are things we like, please see below) wouldn’t matter in the slightest and would likely become unattractive if we didn’t love who he was.
Shallow not Serious, (but just as much fun to think/read about):
I know if you listen to the podcast, you were probably expecting this category to show up eventually and I didn’t want to disappoint! He’s a very large man with (I imagine) glorious chest hair and upper body strength to swoon for! I think it’s best just to list a few swoon-worthy quotes for us all to enjoy:
“While the water lapped his thickly hairy chest…” (The Cuckoo’s Calling, Part 4: Chapter 6)
“Oh yeah,’ said Strike, who was standing bare-chested in front of the shaving mirror he usually kept beside the kitchen sink, the shower room being both dark and cramped. Wiping shaving foam from around his mouth with his forearm…” (The Silkworm, Chapter 11)
“Strike threw his crutches onto the back seat and stood for a moment precariously balanced; then, with a show of upper body strength that she had never seen before, pulled himself smoothly into the car.” (The Silkworm, Chapter 28)
“He had become six foot three of highly concentrated potential.” (The Silkworm, Chapter 37)
“Strike frowned, running thick fingers through his dense hair, imagining Anstis’s patronising response.” (The Silkworm, Chapter 41)
“The memory of certain erotic sights and sounds—her alabaster skin faintly damp under his mouth, her pale lips wide in a moan—added savor to the tang of nicotine.” (Career of Evil, Chapter 14)
“She seemed to have forgotten over the previous six days how large he was. Hunched over the newspaper, he reminded her of a black bear, stubble thick on his face, tucking into a bacon and egg ciabatta roll, and Robin felt a wave of liking simply for the way he looked.” (Troubled Blood, Chapter 16)
“For a moment or two, she indulged herself in a little fantasy of flying out to Greece with Strike, to interrogate the old artist. She imagined the oven-blast of heat that would hit them on leaving the plane in Athens, and saw herself in a dress and sandals, heading up a dusty track to Satchwell’s front door. But when her imagination showed her Strike in shorts, with the metal rod of his prosthetic leg on display, she felt suddenly embarrassed by her own imaginings, and closed the little fantasy down before it took her to the beach, or the hotel.” (Troubled Blood, Chapter 45)
One of my favorite things about being so lucky to get to occasionally interact with JK Rowling online is that she sometimes drops a like or a response that reminds us all that she does pay attention to what readers are saying. It’s a lot of fun to know that not only is she very aware of the book crushes a lot of readers have, but that she might just agree!
A huge thank you to the man who tweeted the original question because he really made my day. It was so fun seeing the wave of responses, including Jo’s, about why we all love this fictional, one legged man.