Review written in 2018:
Despite the fact that this series is written under a pseudonym, I find it impossible to untangle my feelings for it from my feelings about JK Rowling. Recent decisions she has made in the extended Harry Potter franchise- the lack of acknowledgement or apologies to Native American and Canadian First Nations people hurt by her appropriations of native stories, her continued support of Johnny Depp despite the evidence against him, revealing that Nagini in the films is in fact an Asian woman- are deeply disappointing. I wish the author who had written such a moving (if flawed) story about inclusion, compassion, and resistance to fascist authority would have more progressive politics.

I read this book with particular attention to how characters of minority backgrounds were portrayed. The only mentioned gay character is a middle-aged government man who gropes his young male staff. The only Muslim character has been disowned by his family for working for this government official, and the gay rumors that spread to him. The only genderqueer character to have ever been mentioned in hundreds of thousands of words by JKR is a whiny, unsympathetic thief. One of very few brown characters has recently gotten out of prison for involuntary man-slaughter. I understand that this is a murder mystery, and to have multiple suspects, there have to be multiple unsavory characters in the book who have motive and means to commit crime. But even women are not treated very well in this story: I would say there are two whom I like and root for, and one of those has a traumatic rape as the main event of her backstory. Interestingly, several characters with disabilities are show in a very sympathetic light: the main character, Cormoran Strike, is an amputee; there is a respected and responsible blind parliament woman; and a character with schizophrenia who is one of the kindest and most honest men in the book.

But even despite seeing all of this on the page, I was still deeply engaged by this book. Whatever her faults, JKR can write a gripping story. I sped through 650 pages in three or four days, and at the end of it I wanted to go back and re-read the first one. I won't buy them, and I'm uninterested in seeing any more fantastic beasts movies, but I'm sure I will be checking out the next book in this series from the library the month it comes out, just as I did with this one.

Edit added in 2020:
I no longer plan on reading any new book by JKR ever again, even from the library.