The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling
Hardback $25.99, Paperback $13.49, Free from your local library
“How easy it was to capitalize on a person’s own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life.”
I don’t read a lot of books in the hard-boiled detective genre, which is slightly odd considering the fact that I usually enjoy them. They just aren’t books I generally seek out, and since my To Be Read list is always growing longer, rather than shorter, it takes something special to get it into my hands. One way to move quickly up the queue is having an author I respect and enjoy; enter Robert Galbraith- a name you might recognize as the pseudonym for one J. K. Rowling. Yes, that J. K. Rowling.
Who? Me?
Let me be honest: if The Cuckoo’s Calling had NOT been written by J. K. Rowling in disguise, it most likely never would have blipped on my Reader’s Radar. Given that I didn’t much enjoy her only other adult-geared novel, A Casual Vacancy, it’s a testament to the credit I give Rowling that I was willing to pick up this one. My reward, though, was a throughly enjoyable read.
The Cuckoo’s Calling is the first novel in a to-be-published series for detective Cormoran Strike, a hard-nosed, down on his luck private eye. He ticks most of boxes in the Stereotypical Private Eye checklist: anguished love life? Check. Traumatic past? Check. Secretive personal history? Check. Strike is former military, having lost a leg in a Afghanistan, and, more recently, a fiance in London. His creditors are hounding him and the outlook couldn’t be worse when the case of a lifetime lands in his lap.
Lula Landry was the hottest thing going in London’s fashion scene when she suddenly fell to her death one cold, snowy night. The Met may have ruled it a suicide, but that doesn’t satisfy her grief-stricken brother. Strike delves into Landry’s complicated past (aren’t they always?), unraveling her complex network of relationships along the way. Was she really driven to suicide, or were more sinister threats around? The storyline is very tightly focused, without a lot of extraneous filler or red herrings along the way. Where this novel really wins me over, though, is in the slow trickle of information. The reader can sense Strike circling in on the answers he seeks, but the plot gives nothing away. All of the clues are there for the plucking, but it would take a keener mind than mine to put them together. When Strike finally solves his mystery, (as all good private eyes must), a reader might sense Galbraith’s slight-of-hand, but nothing feels too contrived.
The character development is one of the highlight’s of The Cuckoo’s Calling, with a few exceptions. Strike is a deeply realized, fully fleshed-out character, and it’s obvious that the writer got inside the character’s head. Through the course of the novel, his past in unfolded, making his actions more complex and his character more realistic. The only glaring exception is in his recently failed personal relationship. As he attempts to pick through Lula Landry’s life, she also becomes unfolded to the reader, through the eyes of the characters who knew her, loved her, and resented her. It can be a tricky thing to bring to “life” a character who dies before the first pages of a book, but Galbraith nails it. Each character Strike encounters has a rich, unique voice, and the dialog is one of the gems of The Cuckoo’s Calling.This doesn’t hold true, however, in the case of Robin, Strike’s stereotypically plucky and resourceful office assistance. She instead comes across as a bit of a stock character, there to raise doubts about Strike’s competence (since he is, after all, the Loner Detective with a Hidden Past). Taken together, Robin and Strike’s recently ended relationship seem included more as tropes of the genre, there more because they are expected than because they move the story forward.
Cormoran Strike will return in The Silkworm, to be published later this year.
Bluestocking Rambles 