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Robert Galbraith, for those who still don´t know it, is the pseudonym by which J.K. Rowling, the famous writer behind the Harry Potter books, pens these detective saga of books about Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. It is clearly in the Whodunnit genre. In this book, the story follows a former military investigator, who is retired due to an incident where he loses his leg, and has to become a private investigator. That is Cormoran Strike; and The Cuckoo´s Calling is the inaugural book that was followed so far by Silkworm and Career of Evil.
The book is written in clearly different voice as the post Harry Potter book by Rowling “The Casual Vacancy“. In The Cuckoo´s Calling, she takes onto the challenge of making a new success from scratch and see if shee can get away from her own name and success to try again to create a new bestseller saga non dependent on her being her.
The effort to fullfill the challenge is quite clear as she takes more time and detail in creating the characters than what she did on The Casual Vacancy.
The bitter investigator, the young assistant who would rather chase mysteries than have secure job, the murder of a supermodel few days before signing a multimillionaire contract, and a whole lot of suspects.
A high profile family, rap singers, models, designers, film producers, night people, poor friends who benefit from the model. Anyone could´ve done it, everybody has a potential motive, yet everybody claims to love her.
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In the story, Galbraith describes in more or less detail 27 characters, taking the time to present each of them and let us know their motivations. Of course it is mostly centered in Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott; in how Lula Landry was when she was still alive, and in John Bristow -adoptive brother of Lula- who hires Strike to solve the case.
All in all, The Cuckoo´s Calling is a good novel by Robert Galbraith to kick of a murder mystery series, and one that we will probably be soon seeing in the big screen too.
Have you read The Cuckoo´s Calling? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section, and follow me on Twitter for more book reviews.