Brilliantly Disturbing Deep Dive Into the Cult of The Drowned Prophet: The Running Grave

I thought I would read Robert Galbraith’s new detective story, The Running Grave, as a light reading over a few days to make my little breaks from writing a bit spicier.

I was wrong.

I opened the first page on one Tuesday evening, read through the night and got to the last sentence, “Happiness is a choice that requires an effort at times, and it was well past time for him to make the effort”, at 11 pm the following night.

The last time I had such a dive into a book was when I was almost killed by a tram when walking from the bookshop over the busy street in Helsinki, my nose glued to Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire and I didn’t see anything but images the book projected in my mind.

J.K. Rowling has not lost her magic. Let’s explore why.

The suffocating structure of the story.

Galbraith wrote this book as a verbal rip tide.

You tip your toe in the water on the first page. It feels intriguing, and the prologue tickles your curiosity toes like a little fish if you stand still on the beach and let them come and kiss.

There is nothing too ominous, and the I Ching (The Books of Changes that is used as the paddle through the book) gives almost a romantic new-age flavour to the set-up. That is if you are one of those of us who used the oracle to evaporate early adulthood boredom with old Chinese (and cryptic) wisdom.

So, I felt I was in good hands for a couple of hours before I needed to go to bed.

And then the riptide took me.

When Cormoran Strike’s detective partner Robin Ellacot insisted on going undercover to the retreat at the Universal Humanitarian Church (UHC) remote Norfolk farm, their global operations centre, I couldn’t stop reading.

I went deeper and deeper into the salacious world of the UCH with Robin, and the water got colder, more sinister, deeper and more terrifying with each chapter that washed over me.

Just when it became almost overwhelming, Galbraith offered a small floating log to cling to, allowing me to catch my breath for a moment. However, the book quickly pulled me back into the UCH farm, where I witnessed Robin’s gradual and inevitable indoctrination, manipulation, brainwashing, and cruel coercion into the cult’s bizarre and dangerous rituals, doctrines, and practices.

This pendulum between what was happening at the UCH and the world outside created such a formidable tension that I couldn’t stop reading. It went on and on; the chapters took you into the abyss of cult, and then you started to be afraid that Cormoran, with his colleagues, could not be on time to rescue Robin from the increasing danger. The pace of the narrative got busier and tighter until the very last turn of the plot, where the mysteries were all solved.

The structure was a master class of building tension, multidimensional characters, sub-plots, and storytelling.

After the final pages, I was tired — no, I was exhausted, but somehow happy, fulfilled and changed.

The Drowned Prophet appears when obedience is needed.

One of the central thematic flows of the story revolves around the core concept of the UCH: the manifestations of the Drowned Prophet, a child who was meant to drown but returned as a spirit to reward the righteous and punish the evildoers.

This prophet was hatched using deceit, illusions, and crimes. She served as the hollow pillar of the church that Jonathan Wace, the charismatic founder of UCH, built. Wace used this enigmatic and mysterious child to incorporate his woo-woo and ridiculous yet charming platitudes, presenting them as a gradual path towards achieving the pure spirit that the church members aspired to.

Below this all-encompassing and naive worldview that people were trapped into was a sinister money-making machine at a global scale.

The personal abyss and how the book made my own Drowned Prophet appear — near miss of a cult in my life.

The Running Grave is a surgical dissection of the mechanics and ingredients of any cult. To my horror, a long-lost memory came to me like the spooky Drowned Prophet while reading the book.

It was night, and I made myself a cup of tea while holding my iPad to continue reading when I remembered one weekend in the late 70s. I was 20 and curious.

Two sisters (psychologists by profession, mind you) who were much older than me but fun to be with invited me to join their weekend retreat. It was at an old school in a beautiful rural village. The school was turned into some sort of meditation centre. The retreat was in late chilly, dark and wet autumn — perfect for a refreshing retreat.

There were about 14 of us. The charismatic founder of the particular practice we were about to learn had been teaching the sisters in London, and now they brought the truth about our essential self to us. “Who you truly are,” was the question. Apart from the practice sessions, we were not allowed to speak during the weekend. We had just tea and some very bleak vegetarian food and had to sleep on hard mattresses in a cold old classroom.

For two days, we sat facing our changing pair, who was allowed only to ask, “Who are you?”. Then, you had to start answering until you were confused and almost hysteric. Nobody dared to question anything; the pressure was on.

The sisters changed the pairs randomly, and the same continued until I escaped on Sunday late morning when I was assigned to bring the food from the kitchen. It was too much for me.

I ran to a nearby train stop, and luckily, I had some money and could take the train back to Helsinki. I was pretty shaken after the intensive sessions that didn’t seem to have any sense at all but to get people over the edge.

My experience was like an episode from The Running The Grave but in a milder format. The book has immense power in depicting the cult’s workings and applies to any cult. Shivers ran down my spine when I thought how close I had been to being pushed over the limits of my resilience to resist brainwash.

The emotional prism of the characters was a full spectrum.

We know from Harry Potter that Rowling has deep empathy and the skills to observe human nature in a way that comes alive on her pages. Camouflaged as Robert Galbraith, she has an opportunity to play with a different genre, vocabulary and people. These stories are raw but ravishing studies of the human condition.

Galbraith’s world is contemporary and reflects London’s urban backdrop for the stories. His characters — their relationships, behaviours and attitudes — are so richly described that even the smaller players shine on the pages in their own right.

The engine of the whole Cormoran Strike series is the relationship between Cormoran — the limping detective — and his young business partner, Robin Ellacott — a rape survivor. The wounds both carry give the series a rich soil to sow the seeds of stories. Cormoran got his scars from the war in Afghanistan, where he lost his leg and troubled childhood as the son of a rock star with a mercurial mother; Robin from being one time badly married and, before that, brutally raped survivor.

They love each other but cannot synchronise their feelings towards each other. So, they seek relationships elsewhere while working as an unparalleled team.

The other characters are seen through the crossfire from these two detectives’ observations. The changing perspectives of Robin and Cormoran make them so alive that you think you can talk to them, and they will answer.

Very seldom a detective story has this level of nuance and psychological depth.

As a brilliant writer, Galbraith leaves the door open for a sequel again. We want to know if Cormoran and Robin ever get together or if they are just crimes they can solve successfully instead of living happily ever after.

What is your Drowned Prophet?

This book’s prominent theme is to expose how cults keep their followers controlled. But on a more profound level, the book made me think about my own ghosts — those traumatic and often actively forgotten experiences that may or may not have the potential to make us prey to cults.

This book is a stunning detective story, but more than that. It calls us to be there for each other and not let external and charismatic leaders make us spiritually enslaved people for their purposes. And we can also create our own cults inside our heads based on the pain we have endured. “It’s dangerous to make a cult of your own unhappiness. Hard to get out, once you’ve been in there too long. You forget how,” said Cormoran Strike.

So many layers to dive into. Thankfully, it also gives you a life preserver: a deeper understanding of these people as your spiritual scuba gear.

This book deserves a second reading. So, give it a go.