The Cuckoo’s Calling (Cormoran Strike #1)

Oh boy, quite possibly the worst book Ive ever managed to finish reading; I only finished it because it is the book of the month for our book club at work. Galbraith (Rowling) writes beautiful passages at times but describing every person and scene in intense detail does not make a great book.

What is lacking for 350 of the 400+ pages is any kind of plot development. A private eye novel should build suspense and constantly have the reader wondering what the next clue means. Instead we follow Strike the protagonist through a series of meetings that lead to no conclusions and no questions for the reader to ponder beyond why am I reading this book?

Rowling should stick with a Harry Potter, that series was excellent.

I was very disappointed with this book after having read J K Rowling for so many years with great enjoyment. The language used by the characters was atrocious and the violence far too dirty like she was trying to prove this was an adult story. Good character possibilities and good plotting for the mystery could barely keep me going to finish it. I kept waiting for J K to reappear. The two major characters were just engaging enough to get me to start the second book in the series, hoping the atrocious language was more a function of the personas of the bad guys in the storyline. At first it appeared that might be the case. Unfortunately a major part of this storyline revolves around a novel full of degradation and aberrant sex that she insisted on describing in greater and greater detail. Finally I just gave up. I read for pleasure. Not to end up feeling dirty and repulsed. As I said I am SO disappointed being adult has taken such a dark turn in this talented writer.

I read The Cuckoos Calling to fulfill the prompt of A book with a female author who uses a male pseudonym (in this case, J. K. Rowling) for the 2018 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge.

The first in a series of detective novels, this is the Introduction of Cormoran Strike, a private investigator who has seen better days: hes previously lost half a leg in Afghanistan, loses his longtime girlfriend as the novel begins, is receiving death threats from a former client, and is down to a single client and facing mounting debt.

The arrival of his new temporary secretary, Robin, ushers in a season of change for both of them. Soon, Strike is hired by the brother of a supermodel who famously fell to her death from the balcony of her third-floor flat 3 months prior. Her brotherwho also happens to be the brother of one of Strikes friends who died as a childoffers a great deal of money to Strike to prove Lulas death was not suicide, but murder.

There are lots of twists and turns in the mystery/investigation, and the prerequisite number of red herrings floating about. I honestly was less impressed by the mystery and its outcome (throwing away things that dont make sense by way of virtually saying, Who knows what goes through the mind of a psychopath? is the sign of a lazy or incompetent author, and Rowling is normally not either) than I was by the characters of Cormoran and Robin, though I did feel a lot more development could have happened with them, but considering the book was already close to 600 pages and the pacing seemed to drag at times, perhaps it is best Rowling/Galbraith saved some for future books in the series.

Based on the strength of the main characters and some of the peripheral ones, I gave this 4 out of 5 stars, and will be picking up the next book in the series to see how these characters continue to develop.

JK Rowling has some biases about adoption that I think need some looking into. The abnormal adopted child trope should have been examined and discarded long ago, but here it is, in play in yet another one of Rowlings books. She is not alone of course, 4 out of 5 of the mystery series I have picked up to read in the last few years have all used adoptions gone wrong as a plot device. Rowling is usually good at standing up for the underdog, but in this book (and in the Potter series as well) she supports the negative unexamined myths and biases about adoption in Western culture. Really disappointing. The black people in the story were disproportionately depicted in negative stereotypical ways too.
As for the rest of the book, I dont have much to add that hasnt been said already. Its a bit long, perhaps overly descriptive at times, but the characters are solid and interesting. Hard for me to recommend a plot that relies on bigotry to come together though.

As an author of non-fiction books, I thought it was high time that I took on the writing of a fiction novel as my next challenge.

My agent had suggested it previously, but now I was ready.

In his book ‘On Writing, Stephan King suggests that all authors should do two things to improve their craft: read and write, a lot.

I was interested to see how JK Rowling under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith (sorry if this is a plot spoiler for you), would handle the transition from writing for children to adults.

I’ll tell you how well she managed it: I became so engrossed in the first of the series of Cormoran Strike detective novels that I forgot about studying her work and just enjoyed it.

You don’t need me to summarise the story, after all, that’s what the back cover is for, but I will say that I am in awe of Galbraith/ Rowling. I have not since reading ‘Love in a time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, found another author who makes a detailed description of the ‘mundane’ as entertaining as Galbraith.

it’s an unbelievably tricky skill to walk the tight rope between superfluous and necessary description (I know all too well, often falling the wrong side).

I still don’t l know how she does it, but now I’m too busy reading the strike novels solely for pleasure to care.

PS: I sent the book to my dad in Cornwall who is now also hooked!

Enjoy.

Matt 🙂

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