As you’ll know if you haven’t been hiding under a rock, Robert Galbraith is the pen name of J.K Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. It took me quite a while to get around to reading them. But there are now four books in the Cormoran Strike series and while I have no interest in The Casual Vacancy, I do like whodunnits. Preferably cosies, with the occasional police procedural, but I’ll try something different. I was prepared to trust J.K Rowling; when you think about it, each of the Potter novels is a mystery, if not a murder mystery. Harry, Ron and Hermione have to solve a mystery in each book in order to save the day.
And this is a series about a private eye, very old-style, though set in the here and now. Cormoran Strike is an Afghanistan veteran who investigated for the army while he was there, but was invalided out after having a leg blown off. At the start of The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first novel, he has just left his wealthy girlfriend, for good reason, and had to move into his office. He has only two clients and keeps getting death threats from one who didn’t like the results of his investigation. Then he is commissioned by the brother of an old - late - schoolmate, who says his adoptive sister, a beautiful model, was murdered, not a suicide as the police concluded. So, the “mean streets” detective enters the world of fashion modelling for this novel.
The second book, The Silkworm, takes Cormoran into the world of publishing. A novelist has been murdered horribly in a manner taken from the last scene of a truly dreadful unpublished manuscript, and again Cormoran Strike is asked to investigate. I have to say, reading this, I’m very glad I write for children, not adults! We’re told that the author is not very good, in fact very bad, but somehow he has been published by trade publishers. Even his published work is bad, and the unpublished one is far worse.
So, what did I think? I liked Cormoran, who is a decent man and very good at his job. I liked his assistant, Robin, who comes to work for him as a secretary, but has ambitions to be a detective herself, and is very good at Googling the information they need. And the stories were exciting- I read them both almost in single sittings.
I couldn’t help wondering if J.K Rowling is a smoker, though. In the first novel, pretty much everyone except Robin is a chain smoker. Cormoran goes to interview someone and they always light up one smoke after another. Not quite as much smoking in The Silkworm, but Cormoran puffs away n nearly every scene. With his prosthetic leg, he is in a lot of pain, but somehow never seems to be short of breath!
Still, it’s a good adult series, written by a terrific children’s writer. I probably wouldn’t have read them if I hadn’t been curious and if Robert Galbraith had been the author’s real name, as I prefer my cosies, but I’m glad I did.
And this is a series about a private eye, very old-style, though set in the here and now. Cormoran Strike is an Afghanistan veteran who investigated for the army while he was there, but was invalided out after having a leg blown off. At the start of The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first novel, he has just left his wealthy girlfriend, for good reason, and had to move into his office. He has only two clients and keeps getting death threats from one who didn’t like the results of his investigation. Then he is commissioned by the brother of an old - late - schoolmate, who says his adoptive sister, a beautiful model, was murdered, not a suicide as the police concluded. So, the “mean streets” detective enters the world of fashion modelling for this novel.
The second book, The Silkworm, takes Cormoran into the world of publishing. A novelist has been murdered horribly in a manner taken from the last scene of a truly dreadful unpublished manuscript, and again Cormoran Strike is asked to investigate. I have to say, reading this, I’m very glad I write for children, not adults! We’re told that the author is not very good, in fact very bad, but somehow he has been published by trade publishers. Even his published work is bad, and the unpublished one is far worse.
So, what did I think? I liked Cormoran, who is a decent man and very good at his job. I liked his assistant, Robin, who comes to work for him as a secretary, but has ambitions to be a detective herself, and is very good at Googling the information they need. And the stories were exciting- I read them both almost in single sittings.
I couldn’t help wondering if J.K Rowling is a smoker, though. In the first novel, pretty much everyone except Robin is a chain smoker. Cormoran goes to interview someone and they always light up one smoke after another. Not quite as much smoking in The Silkworm, but Cormoran puffs away n nearly every scene. With his prosthetic leg, he is in a lot of pain, but somehow never seems to be short of breath!
Still, it’s a good adult series, written by a terrific children’s writer. I probably wouldn’t have read them if I hadn’t been curious and if Robert Galbraith had been the author’s real name, as I prefer my cosies, but I’m glad I did.
6 comments:
Hi Sue - interesting to read your reviews here ... and I'm sure I'll pick one up sometime and read it - especially as you've given us a taster here ... it may be a few years - but it will happen - cheers Hilary
Hi Hilary! So, what ARE you reading right now?
I feel I must be the only one who liked Casual Vacancy. I had to get a long way into it before I got tbt hang of it, though. It was as if Rowling set out to stite literature, and then her page turner self kicked in, with the insight of the person who wrote Neville Longbottom, and the rage of someone who's seen the underside of life and the poorer classes kept down by the banality of the middle classes who literally refuse to see them. Hence the bite in the final line.
I've enjoyed the TV series of Cormoran Strike - on DVD from the library and am keeping an eye out for the books. It's good to know that you enjoyed them so I can look forward to them with some confidence of enjoying them too.
I am glad to hear you liked Casual Vacancy. I just haven’t read it, so don’t actually dislike it. Perhaps my library has a copy. And maybe they have the Strike DVDs too? Thanks for the recommendation!
I've been wary of JK's non-HP books. Think it is likely to stay that way as I really odn't like books where the lead smokes. Funny, because they are just words on the page.
I’ll agree with you about the smoking thing, but the books are good in themselves and Cormoran Strike certainly has some PTSD after Afghanistan. Also, there is a “mean streets” flavour about these novels and mean streets private eyes do tend to smoke. 😏
Post a Comment