Cormoran Strike

Strike comes back from the war with a prosthesis, a near-bankrupt agency and debts. After splitting with Charlotte, he sleeps on a camp bed in the office. That same day a temp named Robin arrives, someone he can't even afford. The Lula Landry case changes everything: Strike proves the model was murdered by her own adoptive brother, the man who hired him. His name ends up in the papers.

Now well known, Strike takes on the disappearance of novelist Owen Quine. His leg aches through the London winter, and the police don't enjoy him solving cases first. He starts to see that Robin has an investigator's instincts and wants more than answering phones. When police arrest Leonora, Quine's widow, Strike stakes his name on her innocence almost alone and proves himself right.

A severed leg arrives addressed to Robin, and every suspect comes from Strike's own life: stepfather Jeff Whittaker, whom he blames for his mother Leda's death, and two men he crossed paths with in the Army. Afraid for his partner, he tries to keep her out of danger and ends up firing Robin when she goes it alone. After catching the killer, he goes to her wedding to ask her back.

With fame, the agency gains clients and staff, and Strike starts treating Robin as a true partner. He takes the case of Minister Jasper Chiswell, blackmailed by two men, while also hearing out Billy Knight, a young man who swears he saw a crime as a child. Charlotte, now married to someone else, comes looking for him again, and Strike has to decide what to do with the past.

In Cornwall, Strike sits with his aunt Joan, the woman who raised him for part of his childhood, through her illness, and takes on the 1974 disappearance of Margot Bamborough. It's the agency's longest case. Joan dies during the investigation, and Strike, who runs from feelings, starts to see how much he relies on Robin.

On the Anomie troll case, Strike's body takes its toll: his stump hurts and he ends up on crutches. He keeps a relationship hidden from Robin and tries to work out what he feels for her after a near-kiss neither of them mentions.

In the books, Strike is bigger and rougher than Tom Burke. His full name is Cormoran Blue Strike.