Instead, the perfume is subdued and pulsates within the heart of the jungle with a comforting earthiness. For some reason I was expecting this to be sweet, but it’s far from that. There’s a creaminess that helps to create what feels like a lush carpet of wood and green and mildly ripening fruit. It’s green and feels earthy and rooty like vines that are meeting the ground and attaching themselves to the earth below. Philosykos opens with one second of sparkling ozone followed by this inviting coconut and fig. ‘Philosychos’ in Greek means “ friend of the fig tree,” a fitting name for a scent described this way at a website that reviews perfumes:

The names of Robin’s baseline perfume, Philosychos, and the one she and Strike choose at story’s end, Narciso, both point less to the bedroom than to Robin’s allegorical, psychological, and mythological role in the series. Strike, it must be recalled, balks at buying Robin a perfume for Christmas, not only because his flu bug prevents him from being able to smell anything (or think clearly), but also because the names of scents recommended to him mean “In Your Arms” and “Ravishing Musk.” Strike tells Robin in the last chapter trip to Liberty’s perfume counter that these names sounded to him like “Shaggable You,” which idea makes Robin laugh out loud. What is left unnoted, beyond the connection to be made between the perfumes mentioned and the identity of the person who wears it, is the importance of the perfume names. The anonymous compilier notes on that page without further elucidation that “Perfumes appear to be an important and recurring theme in Troubled Blood, emphasizing identity and how we want to be seen versus how other people see us.” The various perfumes mentioned in Troubled Blood have been catalogued at the always helpful StrikeFans website. As much as perfumes play an outsized role in Troubled Blood, the name of the perfume is worth a moment’s reflection because its meaning is suggestive of Robin’s role in the allegorical drama that the Cormoran Strike mysteries are. Strike and Matthew both liked it, perhaps their only point of agreement beyond loving Robin herself. Robin Ellacott-Cunliffe’s perfume of choice until the dissolution of her marriage was Philosychos by Diptyque.

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