Customer Reviews

The Cuckoo's Calling: Cormoran Strike, Book 1 (Unabridged)

I came across this novel when browsing the new releases and thought it looked interesting and worth a read. I'm glad I took the punt because the Cuckoo's Calling is a terrific mystery story. The brother of a troubled model calls in a private investigator following her death in what the police are treating as suicide. Everything points to this but as we get deeper in to the novel it becomes clear that all is not as it seems.

The private investigator Cormoran Strike is a terrific character: ex-army turned P.I going through a messy separation from his fiancé and whose business is in real financial trouble he is immediately sympathetic. The other characters, from eccentric fashion designers to drug-addicted musicians feel real and the dialogue is believable. The mystery is satisfyingly complex with a nice conclusion that I didn't see coming.

One of the things that really set this book apart for me in the crowded genre of private investigator fiction was the quality of writing, depth of character and the wonderful sense of place Galbraith brings to the novel. Galbraith's vivid descriptions bring the story to life and we feel like we are there with Strike and his temporary secretary Robin as they solve the mystery. I suppose I would describe this as quite an old-fashioned style thriller with an emphasis placed on interviewing witnesses and gathering clues rather than action and this really helped with the character development.
I hope there will be more books in the series and I'll certainly read them if they are released. Very highly recommended.

p.s: excellent narration of the audio book from Robert Glenister.

So many reviews and that tells the story alone. J K Rowling is a literary sensation, after Harry Potter I confess I was slightly let down by Casual Vacancy, but I think I didn't bring enough to the book, and some of the overt politics grated.
However this book I loved. It shows a strong narrative ability that gives the lie to those that think that Rowling is just "lucky". She clearly works hard at her plotting and though over long in places the chapters keep pace and are always illuminating the plot.

I like the Robert Galbraith name, it gives her a chance in the tradition of other authors (King, Christie) to step away from the Potter brand - as a crime debut novel it is very good and I for one hope that she keeps the conceit going when she writes book two. The novel feels contemporary and realistic to the London I know and grounded in realistic and rich characters. Her opening chapters about the arrival of a temp to a new job ring true to someone who has temped and show that she has done her research and kept her grounded feel that the early Potter books had. The thing to remember about Rowling is that she writes books that are worth reading, she may not be writing the kind of literary fiction that one would study on an English Lit course, but she IS writing the kind of work that connects, enthrals and entertains readers. Sometimes a little misanthropic in its view of life but all in all a very absorbing read and I look forward to more in the series.

This is a wonderfully entertaining new crime debut, which although it contains nothing amazingly original, works really well. Firstly, there is the main character, Cormoran Strike - a wounded war veteran, with a troubled past, damaged love life and financial woes, which see him sleeping in his office when we first meet him. Strike has left the army, which provided him with the structure and home life his mother never could, and set up as a Private Detective. The only problem is, a lack of paying clients. He then receives a new temporary secretary, Robin Ellacott, with her slightly stuffy fiance and her secret desire to be a detective. Both Strike and Robin, are fully fleshed out characters that we care about deeply by the end of the book.

The crime Strike is asked to investigate involves a famous supermodel, who falls (or is pushed) from her balcony on a snowy, London night. Lula Landry is the adopted daughter of a wealthy family and her adopted brother is insistent that she had no suicidal feelings when he met up with her that day. As Strike sets out to investigate, we are introduced to a cast of identifiable characters - the effeminate dress designer, drug taking Paparazzi avoiding boyfriend, disgrunted 'wannabee' film star chauffeur, elderly, dying mother, disapproving family members, etc. Although the plot is really quite a simple one, it works very well. The author has created a totally realistic scenario, with London almost becoming an extra character as Strike walks the streets and a satisfactory plot with a good cast of suspects.

I would say that Cormoran Strike is the best new addition to the P I genre that I have read for a long time. He certainly deserves a series and I hope to see him appear in many more books. There were tantalising glimpses of his past which need much further exploration and perhaps the author can be kinder to him in the next book and, at least, get him a proper place to sleep. I feel he will serve the author well and deserves a little looking after! If you enjoy really intelligent, well written crime novels (P D James, etc) then this will be a book you will love. Great start to what will, hopefully, become a long running series.

* After I reviewed this book I discovered it was, obviously, by J K Rowling. I hope that she continues the series, as I thought it was extremely good, although I have to admit to never having read (or, indeed, wanting to read) the Harry Potter books. If you do read this, then please judge it as a crime novel on it's own merits.

The Cuckoo's Calling takes hold of you, almost gently, from the first page, and while it isn't a perch-on-the-edge-of-your-seat read, it is entirely engrossing.

For the plot alone I would give three stars. It became rather difficult to follow towards the end, thanks in no small part to the increasing withdrawal of the narrative from Cormoran Strike's deducting mind - something that I suppose was intended to keep the reader in suspense, but still affected my degree of immersion in the story. The big reveal at the end felt, if not contrived, then predictable in its total unpredictability, and relied on the staple monologue from the protagonist to explain how exactly the event that the book revolves around happened.

It's the characters that make The Cuckoo's Calling. Strike himself is sympathetic, but Robin, his secretary temp, is the easiest to warm to. They both feel real, and as a result the world they inhabit feels real (apart from said slightly-contrived thriller elements). It helps that JK Rowling writes about London like a long-time resident. Special mention should go to the prose as well. The balance is just right - not too florid, and vivid enough to elevate it above the usual gently-paced crime story.

One of the things I suppose you'd call a defining element of The Cuckoo's Calling is its perspective on the world of celebrity. Almost every single famous person in the book is portrayed as uncompromisingly odious, obsessed with only the most shallow of things, sometimes to the point of life and death. Perhaps JK Rowling hasn't had an entirely enjoyable experience as a famous person herself - you get the impression she'd happily have all her success without any of the fame - and it feels like this personal hatred bleeds through the story. It didn't put me off the story, and indeed, there's some great character description as a result. It was just...interesting.

I hope knowing that JK Rowling is the author hasn't coloured my view of The Cuckoo's Calling. Certainly I would not have picked it up without knowing - crime novels always seem to blur together these days for me. But I'm very glad I read it, and it is certainly of a higher calibre than many other books in its genre.

It's hard to put your finger on exactly what it is that makes The Cuckoo's Calling such a terrific new Private Investigator crime fiction debut. On the surface it seems straightforward, unexceptional and unambitious, everything fits the established conventions, there's nothing immediately new that stands out, and yet it's an utterly compelling read with strong characters that wraps you up completely and thrillingly into the investigation.

There's certainly nothing significantly new in the nature of the Private Detective at the centre of the book and series. Yes, the circumstances are a little different and the family background a little more colourful than most, but at heart, Cormoran Strike doesn't stray too far from the template - ex-army rather than ex-police, with a complicated personal life, a detective business that is on its last legs (no pun intended on Strike's service injury), clients are drying up, the loan that has set him up in London's Denmark Street is being called in and he's in the middle of a messy break-up with his fiancée. Nothing particularly noteworthy so far, not even the fact that the temp agency has just landed him with a new partner - sorry, a new secretary, Robin, who is only supposed to be around for a few weeks, but of course ends up making herself quite useful, not to say even indispensable, creating the obligatory mismatched team in the process.

There's nothing particularly exceptional either about the high profile case - the death of a supermodel - that lands in his lap and keeps the wolves away from the door just that little bit longer. Falling to her death from her third-floor Mayfair apartment, the verdict of suicide is obviously not accepted by the distraught brother of the family that had adopted her, even though she clearly had problems in the run up to her death, much of it stemming from a troubled relationship with her boyfriend, a Pete Doherty-style musician. For some reason there is particular emphasis made of the setting and the timing of the case, setting it specifically in London in 2010, in the last days of the Brown Labour government, without there seeming to be any particular social or political point to be drawn from this. Or perhaps there is some significance in the Amy Winehouse/Kate Moss celebrity lifestyle issues and pre-press hacking revelations that is worth exploring or considering. Even so, it hardly seems to be a subject that is going to make any major revelations.

And yet, The Cuckoo's Calling does indeed prove to be utterly compelling in its depiction of every aspect of this world that the investigation delves into. Like the main investigator team, the various colourful characters that they come into contact with during the investigation do often appear to fit standard types - film producers, fashion designers and big business corporate types on one side, contrasted that with ordinary working class security guards, chauffeurs, hangers-on and wannabes from the other side of London. Every bit of behaviour and every line of dialogue however is well-chosen, precise, accurate and revealing of the nature of the characters, and all the social content that is dredged up seemingly in passing proves to be in some way relevant to the questions of identity and background that the case raises.

If it's hard to pick out anything particularly striking or original about The Cuckoo's Calling, there is however this feeling of it being of a whole. The Private Investigator and his secretary Robin are not outsiders looking in on the lives of the people in their case, but they are as much a part of the whole fabric of the work, their involvement giving an authentic dynamic that interacts with the specific case and the people involved here and gets to the heart of the matter in a surprisingly effective and realistic manner. Undoubtedly, the strength of any great new series of detective fiction lies in establishing a firm connection between the PI and the world they operate in, and Robert Galbraith's creation of Strike and Robin in the contrasts of London life is subtly masterful, but just as importantly, the case is also brought to a good resolution. This is a very fine start to what looks like being a richly rewarding new crime series.

Comoran Strike is a large, fiercely independent and formidably intelligent ex-Military Policeman but if you're thinking that sounds familiar, this is where the resemblances to Jack Reacher firmly end. After service in Afghanistan left him with one leg, he has set up a struggling detective agency. He is hired to investigate the death of a high profile model after she fell from the balcony of her Mayfair apartment. The inquest determined that it was suicide, but her brother believes that there was foul play.

This is the first book I have read by J K Rowling (yes, I was the one), so I cannot compare it to her other books. Initially I thought that I was going to be irritated by the writing style, with its abundance of adjectives and quirky characters. But I quickly put that behind me as I was drawn into the mystery. I also loved some of the descriptions: Cormoran is "a woolly mammoth attempting to blend in amongst capuchin monkeys", another character's mouth puckers around a cigarette "like a cat's anus". For all his oddities, Comoran Strike is a terrific, intriguing character and I also loved the interplay between him and his temporary secretary and would-be sleuth, Robin.

This is at heart a straightforward crime novel. It's not a thriller - no gun fights, no chase scenes - and Cormoran doesn't exhibit any superhuman powers. It's about the slow and steady process of investigation, uncovering clues and closing down red herrings. It's also immensely readable and hard to put down. I would classify it as one of the best crime novels I've read and I very much hope that there will be a sequel.

I don't write reviews normally but I had to write to say how disappointed I was with this book. Firstly, if I hadn't known it was JK Rowling and thought it was a newcomer called Robert Galbraith I would have thought poor Robert had no chance of making it as a writer. The storyline is weak, the characters are clichéd, the whole thing feels like a spoof private detective novel. I wish I hadn't bothered buying it and am so glad I didn't purchase it when it was full price - I would be demanding a refund! Maybe I missed something that others didn't but I am an avid reader and this book was a huge disappointment.

Although JK Rowling wrote this novel under a pseudonym it feels like a very heartfelt book, revealing more about her own life experiences than any other - loss, fame, sudden wealth and press intrusion. Strike is an engaging Private Detective and will be a hit with readers who love Jackson Brodie. I hope that Rowling is not put off writing more in the series by having her
identity blown.

This was certainly a "page-turner" - gaining the readers interest very quickly with skilfully drawn characters and a well-plotted storyline. Very topical themes of celebrity culture, greed and media intimidation. All of which the author has personal experience of!
A recommended holiday read.

Great whodunnit, with instantly likeable and very plausible protaganist and sidekick.

The real strength of the book for me was the dialogue. Rowling nailed the cadences, the slang and the verbal tics of a broad panoply of characters: hardened cops, prim and unworldly Yorkshire lass, supermodel, gay fashion designer, druggie celeb, lawyers, spoiled society wives, and on and on. London encompasses many increasingly divergent argots, and here all are evinced with marvellous authenticity. Never once did the dialogue jar, or slip into stereotype. Not once did it read as exposition or feel contrived or forced.

The other pleasant revelation is that Rowling has a great sense of humour and is adept at fashioning both comedic scenes and hilarious dialogue. There is just enough levity, judiciously employed, to enliven the story without debasing its solemnity.

I was very sorry for Rowling that some twit let the cat out of the bag about her authorship. I found it rather a distraction at times to know the author's identity; I found myself reading the book while involuntarily marvelling at her versatility. I hope she is not deterred from giving us more of Cormoran and Robin.