Anna Phipps

“Strike found himself looking directly into the large, anxious eyes of a woman standing at the bar with a friend. She had a long, pale face and her dark, shoulder-length hair was streaked with gray.” 1

After a night out at the pub, Strike is approached by Anna Phipps, a woman who asks him to look into the 1974 disappearance of her mother, Dr. Margot Bamborough.2 Having turned to more unconventional methods in the past, such as internet sleuths and psychic mediums, Anna is hoping for answers when she meets Cormoran Strike.3

Anna is a successful architect who designed the second home in Falmouth she shares with her wife, Kim Sullivan.4 Together, she and Kim have two cats named Cagney and Lacey.5 Anna has a somewhat strained relationship with her father, Roy Phipps, due to her desire to learn more about her mother and his desire to move on from painful memories.6

Anna was only a year old when her mother disappeared but now, at age 40, the thought of never knowing what happened to her mother weighs heavily on Anna’s heart.7 Running into Strike feels like fate and catapults Troubled Blood into the agency’s first-ever cold case. 

1: Troubled Blood, Chapter 1
2: Troubled Blood, Chapter 2
3-7: Troubled Blood, Chapter 6