History Literature / TroubledBlood

* SnuffFilm: The 16mm film retrieved from Bill Talbot's storage is revealed to be a film of the entirely real murder of a young woman. It turns out that the woman in question was a stripper for the Ricci crime gang who had turned police informant, and her death was unrelated to the disappearance of Margot Bamborough.

* ChekhovsParty: The barbecue at Margaret Bamborough's house. [[spoiler: It was mentioned as the only time C.B. Oakden met Margaret, which caused him to write the tell-all book, and where Gloria [[MorningSickness vomited]] so much that she realized she was pregnant by her abusive boyfriend. But all of this is just a RedHerring for the ultimate reveal, which is that Janice, a SerialKiller, had poisoned the punch and caused Gloria's illness, privately hoping to poison them all. While it didn't work due to the bowl getting broken, Gloria's illness was enough to make Margaret suspicious, and so Janice killed her]].

* ObviousVillainSecretVillain: The SerialKiller Dennis Creed who tortured and murdered many women throughout the 1970s and 1980s in his TortureCellar is now imprisoned in a high-security psychiatric hospital where he still enjoys toying with the surviving families of his victims. [[spoiler:The hidden villain is the BigBad, Janice, a BattleaxeNurse who poisoned her son and so-called friends whenever they displeased her. She also murdered multiple people, most because she saw them as threats to her crush with a man she barely knew, but also just because she wanted to. ''And'' she murdered Margaret Bamborough and did a decent job of framing Creed for it.]]

* PretendingToBeOnesOwnRelative: Margaret helps out Wilma Bayliss by suggesting that Wilma cleaned her house for a couple of hours every week to pay for the legal fees so Wilma could divorce her husband. Wilma couldn't afford the train fee so she sent her sister Carmen instead, who pretended to be Wilma to Margaret's children and nanny.

* ObviousVillainSecretVillain: The SerialKiller Dennis Creed who tortured and murdered many women throughout the 1970s and 1980s in his TortureCellar is now imprisoned in a high-security psychiatric hospital where he still enjoys toying with the surviving families of his victims. [[spoiler:The hidden villain is the BigBad, Janice, a BattleaxeNurse who poisoned her son and so-called friends whenever they displeased her. She also murdered multiple people, most because she saw them as threats to her crush with a man she barely knew, but also just because she wanted to. ''And'' she murdered Margaret Banborough and did a decent job of framing Creed for it.]]

"It’s. What. I. DO!" shouted Robin, thumping herself hard on the sternum with each word."

* OverlyNervousFlopSweat: The narration describes Steve Douthwaite's "bloodshot eyes, his forehead sweaty" as he nervously denies knowing anything about the death of Margot Bamborouh. It turns out that he's breaking out in flop sweat because he ''does'' know who killed Margot.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Margot's practice on Clerkenwell Road, where she disappeared, is just a few blocks from Strike's office on Denmark Street. That's why Strike just happened to be there when Samhain Athorn came ambling by--and Strike only observed ''that'' because he had just hung up from a phone call with Irene where Irene said the mysterious "Applethorpe" had a developmentally challenged son with huge ears. Being there in that spot at that time, and spotting Samhain, turns out to be the vital break that allows Strike to unravel the entire mystery.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Anna just happens to run into Cormoran at a Cornish pub. But that's less contrived than her mother actually disappeared in London forty years ago, close enough to be a convenient distance from Strike and Robin's offices, and Anna just happening to be on a night out to Cornwall, close to where Strike's aunt lives.

* RevisitingTheColdCase: For the first time ever in the Cormoran Strike series, as Strike and Robin investigate the four-decade old cold case of a 29-year-old doctor who disappeared without a trace.

* SecretOtherFamily: A bit of comic relief early in the novel has Robin tailing a man they nicknamed "Tufty" because of his DodgyToupee. Tufty's wife in Windsor suspected he was cheating on her. It turns out that while Tufty does have a mistress, he ''also'' is a bigamist with another wife and two more children. And Robin discovers that their client and her children are actually the SecretOtherFamily, as the other wife is the legal wife that Tufty has been married to for twenty years.

* ChekhovsParty: The barbecue at Margaret Barnborough's house. [[spoiler: It was mentioned as the only time C.B. Oakenden met Margaret, which caused him to write the tell-all book, and where Gloria [[MorningSickness vomited]] so much that she realized she was pregnant by her abusive boyfriend. But all of this is just a RedHerring for the ultimate reveal, which is that Janice, a SerialKiller, had poisoned the punch and caused Gloria's illness, privately hoping to poison them all. While it didn't work due to the bowl getting broken, Gloria's illness was enough to make Margaret suspicious, and so Janice killed her]].

* {{Cuckold}}: Also a ContinuityNod. The agency is once again working for "Two-Times", a man who gets bizarre satisfaction from having Robin and Cormoran prove his gorgeous girlfriends to be unfaithful. Two-Times shows "poorly concealed disappointment" when he's told that the glamour model he's dating is ''not'' cheating on him.

* StrawVegetarian: Courtney, a hot but loud-mouthed young woman that Robin's younger brother fancies, irritates Robin with her demands for vegan food at the dinner party.