While we waited for my pick to come in, my mom chose her next one and we downloaded the ebook version. True to form, she had the better choice.
A book written by an author using a pseudonym: The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith
Cormoran Strike is a private detective down on his luck: no clients, no money and a recent split with his fiancee. His office is shabbier than his clothes. Enter Robin, a temporary secretary with a secret dream of being a detective. She is smart, resourceful and a great employee. Too bad Cormoran can’t afford her.
That is until someone from his past offers him a job: looking into the supposed suicide of his supermodel, and extremely rich, sister Lula Landry.
The book is pretty formulaic: down on his luck private eye gets a seemingly easy job, does better than the local cops and makes it big. However, the author builds the characters and scenes in such a way as to keep the reader enthralled. Cormoran, at first a one dimension character, slowly builds up his personality throughout and becomes endearing in his own right.
My ebook version was over 1000 pages and I will admit that it felt mired down in too much detail to the point where several passages could be omitted completely without having any effect on the narrative or character building at all.
I was not expecting the ending, which is always fantastic in a detective “who done it” novel, but I was disappointed in the manner in which it was all revealed. With over 950 pages given to the lead up and investigation of the case, the author then does an information dump in one page where Cormoran goes off explaining exactly how everything happened even though much of it was hidden from the reader until this soliloquy. I know the author had to end it and wrap it all in a neat bow somehow, but I am just not a fan of the detective explains it all to the killer method.
Since I wasn’t the one who picked the novel, I was very surprised when my mom informed me that the famous Harry Potter author JK Rowling was in fact the author of this book. I fully admit that I am not a fan of the Harry Potter series and only barely made it through the first novel (and have no interest in the movies). This novel, compared to those, has a much more mature vibe and is obviously intended for a different audience as it is full of swear words, sex and drugs.
I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good detective novel and found myself looking up the next Cormoran Strike novel and adding it to my “to read list”.
4/5
The Roaming Rider 