Strike and Robin’s first encounter with Pippa Midgley comes after she attacks Strike and attempts to stab him with a knife. Needless to say, Strike’s relationship with this character has a rocky start, and Pippa is subsequently terrified of him, so Robin is later key in obtaining from Pippa information they need for the Quine case.

Pippa is transgender with the birth name of Phillip. She is described as being tall and thin with “a long pale face with large brown eyes and thick dark wavy hair that fell to her shoulders. Her fingers terminated in pointed crimson nails. She looked barely twenty.”

Pippa is close friends with fellow writer and Quine-admirer Kathryn Kent, who is like a mother to her. Pippa was also close to Owen Quine, whom she considered to be a father figure. That is, until she discovers that she’s depicted in Bombyx Mori as Epicoene, a hermaphrodite who thinks she can sing beautifully but in actuality barks like a seal.