WARNING: This page contains spoilers for the fifth Strike novel, Troubled Blood.
Truro is the only place considered a city in Cornwall (because it has a cathedral), and it is Cornwall’s county town. It is roughly a 40-minute car journey from St Mawes, where Strike’s Aunt Joan and Uncle Ted live.
In chapter 1 of Troubled Blood, when Strike is talking to his oldest friend, Dave Polworth, in the Victory Inn, St Mawes, Polworth tells Strike that his wife’s company allowed her to transfer to Truro after they moved from Bristol, where Dave had worked in a managerial position of an engineering firm. Polworth refers to Truro as ‘the Big City’.
The hospital in Truro is where Strike’s Aunt Joan is admitted for treatment after being diagnosed with cancer. In chapter 16 of Troubled Blood, it is mentioned how Strike divides his time between the hospital in Truro visiting Joan and the house in St Mawes, taking it in turns with his sister Lucy.
Strike later recalls how his favourite nephew, Jack, was born in the Truro hospital (April 2003), as Lucy had gone into labour a month early while the family was visiting St Mawes. Strike himself was born in the hospital in Truro (on 23 November 1974).
Later in the novel, Aunt Joan tells Strike that she does not want to be buried in the cemetery in Truro, but instead cremated and her ashes spread into the ocean.
Strike visits St Mawes again for Easter 2014. He takes the train from London to Truro station, where Dave Polworth picks him up in his Dacia Duster.
You can find Truro on the map below.