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In September 2020, Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling released a book called Troubled Blood. It is the fifth instalment in her detective Robin and Strike series. An insane amount of ludicrous and unjust controversy blew up around this book. (Some reviews are positive though.)
While I can understand some people disagreeing with Rowling’s personal comments about the transgender community (although I don’t agree that she did anything wrong), claiming that this book is ‘transphobic’ is utterly ridiculous. Here’s a review of Troubled Blood from someone who has actually fucking read it. (There will be spoilers.)
Is Troubled Blood Transphobic?
No. NO. The only loony-toon-goons who think this book is transphobic are the morons who have not read it. Troubled Blood is about two detectives, Strike and Robin, who investigate the forty-year disappearance of one doctor, Margot Bamborough. One of the suspects is Dennis Creed, a serial killer known as the ‘Essex butcher.’
The controversy around this book has stirred up because Dennis Creed is mentioned as a serial killer who sometimes cross-dresses as a woman when murdering his victims.
Related post: JK Rowling and Political Wokeness Gone Mad
Why This Controversy is Stupid
A: Being transgender is not the same as cross-dressing. A transgender person is someone for whom their internal gender identity does not match their external sex characteristics. They have a real physiological condition, gender dysphoria. Transgender people undergo reassignment surgery and hormone therapy to alter their physical body and hormones. They literally alter their bodies.
Cross-dressing is wearing clothes typical of the opposite sex. That someone could possibly think that this is the same as being transgender is GENUINELY transphobic. It is transphobic and highly ignorant to think that being transgender is the same as dressing up as clothes of the opposite sex.
B: There is no mention, anywhere, of Dennis Creed being transgender. He is a heterosexual man. There are a few lines where his landlady describes him as ‘having a weak and girlish form’ and not being as ‘masculine’ as his father (p.78). Dennis Creed enjoys watching girls and women undress and masturbates with their underwear (p.80). There are a few instances of people thinking he was gay, once on page 80 and again on page 90. On page 82 there is mention of a witness seeing a man dressed as a woman. And on page 105 it mentions that Dennis Creed sometimes cross-dressed.
(The person thought to be a man coming into the surgery was actually a stocky woman named Theo. This is clarified on page 828.)
And that’s it. After that, he is seldom mentioned in Troubled Blood, until chapter sixty-eight where Strike interviews Dennis Creed in prison.
C: Dennis Creed is not even the main killer. The killer is revealed at the end as one of Margot’s co-workers. Creed is the initial suspect because of his reputation for butchering women. But later suspects include Margot’s old boyfriends and a Mafia gangster.
D: The book isn’t about Creed. It’s about Strike and Robin, two deeply realistic and likeable detectives.
E: Dennis Creed is based on real life serial killers who cross-dressed. Hadden Clark, Russell Williams, Jerry Brudos, Doil Lane (who liked sniffing and trying on girl’s underwear), and Daryl Rasmussen are all examples of this. Male killers dressing up as women to kill women is not ‘a trope.’ It’s real life, bitch. (Sadly.) Shouldn’t we be more upset/angry about all the women that this psychopathic misogynist kills?
Representation in Troubled Blood
Regarding ACTUAL LGBT representation, I found three prominent gay characters in Troubled Blood. Anna and Kim, a lesbian couple. (Anna is Margot Bamborough’s daughter.) And Max, Robin’s flatmate.
I was more irritated by the constant reference of non-white characters by their race. (I know, bit lame, but humour me.) White authors often refer to non-white characters by their ethnicity. A white person is ‘a tall man.’ A black person is ‘a black man.’
At a table sat ‘three black women’ (p.640). ‘A slender black woman’ approached Strike (p.748). A ‘black male nurse’ (p. 701). Why couldn’t ‘a black male nurse who sounded like he was from Trinidad’ just be ‘a nurse who sounded Trinidadian’? If you tell us he’s Caribbean, we can infer he’s black.
But a white person is ‘a thin woman’ (p.55), ‘a stout woman’ (p.261), ‘blonde companion’ (p.12) or ‘sympathetic blonde presenter’ (p.905). ‘A very tall man’ (p.755).
Even when Anna is first introduced in chapter one, she is described as ‘dark’. Dark, to me, means dark-skinned. But to white people, dark means brunette. The only time a non-white person is actually physically described is at the end. Theo was ‘dark-skinned’ (p.827), rather that saying ‘a black Romani woman.’
I’m writing this as someone who despises wokeness and political correctness.
The reason I point this out is because it irks me as a writer. It’s sloppy writing. Either you refer to everyone by their ethnicity; ‘a white man’, a ‘black man’, or you find more creative ways of doing this. ‘Black’ means little to black people. Do you mean dark-skinned? Describe their complexion. Fair-skinned. Pale. Caramel-skinned. Actually describe their physical appearance, rather than using ‘black’ as a label for who the person is. (Unless you are actually described their nationality, such as ‘Polish’ or ‘Asian’ or ‘Nigerian’.)
Just two cute white people.
Even in my own books I try to avoid this. I know for white characters, though, thinking about non-white people in terms of their race is inevitable. Especially if they come from small ethnically homogenous towns. But if the author is writing in third person, they should be able to creatively describe people’s complexion. Because then this translates to real life, seeing white people as ‘people’ and black people as ‘black people.’
Overall Thoughts on the Book
All that aside, I thought Troubled Blood was a good book. Very well-written, engaging, and entertaining. Robin and Strike are realistic characters. I definitely liked and related to Robin a lot. My only real qualm (besides the above rant) was that the book is TOO FUCKING LONG. Again, it pisses me off when writers do this. The book took me six weeks to read, so I kept forgetting people and minor incidents.
20th century classic fiction books weren’t so long. (1984, The Bell Jar, The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby.) I’ve read several contemporary fiction works where I thought come on, enough already.
Maybe I’m a little biased as my books aren’t that long. I was also disappointed that Strike and Robin didn’t get together at the end. Maybe they will in book number six. This has made me want to read the other Strike and Robin books in the series. Although, I need to finish Stephen King‘s Dark Tower series first.
Have you read Troubled Blood? What did you think? Is it fair for people to judge books they haven’t even read? Let me know your thoughts!
Hi this is Bri from Weepy”s Corner (weepyscorner.wordpress.com)! Thank you for linking my review into your review.
No worries!