J.K. Rowling does it again. Only this time, the bestselling author pens her latest novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, as Robert Galbraith, recently revealed as her pseudonym. Show The following review is SPOILER FREE. Just as in The Casual Vacancy, this new crime novel departs greatly from Rowling’s Harry Potter days, so Potterheads jumping into the author’s new book should expect such a gap. That being said, similarities to both Potter and Casual Vacancy can be found littered throughout this skillfully plotted and exciting investigative novel. The most obvious match to Casual Vacancy is that The Cuckoo’s Calling starts off with a death that drives the entire story. Readers are met with this tragic death of supermodel Lula Landry, also known as Cuckoo. The media begins to run the celebrity’s death, judged as a suicide, just as we would expect in our own world: without any end in sight. But soon enough, the journey for the real story behind the Cuckoo’s death and the calling from her flat begins. Enter Cormoran Strike: a private detective, returned from Afghanistan after losing his leg, who is short on both business and cash. Following his unexpected pairing with new temporary assistant Robin Ellacott, the sleuthing begins. Throughout the novel, Rowling addresses deep societal woes with which many of her readers are familiar: racism, celebrity privilege, media obsession, and lacking police work, just to name a few. She skillfully weaves these themes into her characters’ lives and the ongoing plot, then leaves them, appropriately, just as they are in our own lives: far from resolved. Fans of Rowling’s work in Harry Potter will rediscover the author’s unmatched skill at characterization. She fully brings her characters to life, through unique names and very vivid descriptions. She gives us a protagonist, Strike, who is very real. Not only does she avoid taking the basic route of making him fully “good” or “bad,” but she even avoids the popular route of creating an in-between, “grayish” character. He is precisely what you would expect as a private detective, holding close to his own life and the problems it contains. The military background provides reasoning behind his sometimes hard nature, as well as his ability to push through the toughest of obstacles. He is brought more to life by the growing relationship he builds with Robin, his new assistant. While there certainly could have been more on the development side of the determined partner, she brings a compelling contrast to the world of celebrity obsession. Rowling is a genius in using characters as foils to plot points, and she does that again masterfully with Robin. As for the story itself, it is a true crime novel to the core. The reader slowly gathers the clues, tries to fit oddly-shaped pieces together, meets a few startling surprises and probably often switches between potential suspects. Even after Strike has clearly come to a conclusion, the reader is left to solve the mystery alongside Robin until, at last, the true story comes forth. As someone who does not often pick up detective and crime novels, I found myself rather engaged throughout, particularly as the last pieces begin to come together in the last quarter of the novel. It is a completely new journey for the author, and she has certainly come a long way since introducing us to Harry outside the front door of Number 4, Privet Drive. But through a series about a boy wizard, a novel about small town relationships and politics, and now a London crime novel, one thing has remained consistent through the pages of J.K. Rowling’s writing: her unparalleled ability to make one read, pause, and reflect on how the story’s bigger themes are so present and relevant in their own lives, making the story feel that much more intimate. Human nature being what it is — a swampy mess of meanness, envy and spite, in case you were wondering — are we surprised that a lot of people would have been thrilled if “The Cuckoo’s Calling” were a terrible book? Or, to put it another way: Hasn’t J.K. Rowling had enough success? And isn’t it time she got her comeuppance? The answers to the aforementioned questions are, respectively: Not really; perhaps; maybe so. But the answer to the most important question of all — is “The Cuckoo’s Calling” a good book? — is simpler: Yes. It’s terrific. This mystery novel featuring a quasi-disabled military veteran; his clever secretary; a rich, troubled beauty who may have been murdered but who just as likely may have plummeted to her death in a suicidal swoon; and an attendant swarm of hypocritical poseurs and annoying hangers-on, is a rich, involving chronicle of contemporary celebrity culture — and a nifty whodunit, to boot. If Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie had briefly shacked up, their love child might very well have been Robert Galbraith. Except that Galbraith, of course, doesn’t exist. It is a pseudonym cooked up by Rowling, one of the most successful authors in history. And if she had her way, we wouldn’t know that, and she would be free to write more mysteries under the name “Galbraith” minus the burden of her success as the creator of the Harry Potter books and the worldwide phenomenon thereof. To Rowling’s displeasure, her secret recently was leaked by the gabby spouse of an employee of the London law firm to whom she had entrusted it, and the subsequent publicity instantly catapulted “The Cuckoo’s Calling” from non-selling obscurity into global best-sellerdom. All of which adds a challenge to the evaluative process of any critic attempting to render an impartial judgment of “The Cuckoo’s Calling”: Can you read the novel without the willowy shadow of Rowling falling across every page? Once you know, you know — that is, just as you can’t unring a bell, you can’t unlearn the fact that Rowling wrote it. I would argue, however, that like it or not, we always read with the author’s biography in mind. We make judgments about a book’s creator even before we crack open — or boot up — the first page. Most of the time, we don’t know much about the author, beyond the thumbnail sketch and tiny photo on the inside cover flap; still, we have expectations based on the writer’s appearance, apparent age, sex, hair style, country of origin, life experience. There is no such thing as a “pure” reading experience: We are awash in personal prejudices and preoccupations and suppositions at all times, based on the writer’s biography and our own as well. (When a writer poses with her or his cat, for instance, I am predisposed against the contents. But that’s just me.) “The Cuckoo’s Calling,” despite its great length, and despite the fact that Rowling needs another hit about as much as Bill Gates needs another billion, is a masterful novel, the kind of big, noisy, busy, beautiful book in which it is so easy and so pleasurable to become enmeshed. The characters are fascinating and true, the London setting is rendered with such visceral sensory precision that you will find yourself reaching automatically for an umbrella, and the mystery at its heart — did Lula Landry jump or was she pushed? — ultimately becomes heartbreaking. Seasoned mystery readers may figure it out before the final revelation, but the real joy in engaging with “The Cuckoo’s Calling” lies in the journey, not the destination. The book’s protagonist is Cormoran Strike, an ex-soldier with a mostly-missing leg who hobbles along — the verb is correct both literally and financially — as a private detective. Professional prospects are not promising: He is “a limping man in a creased shirt,” the narrator notes, a man whose “conscience, once firm and inelastic, had been weakened by repeated blows of fate.” But when the sister of one of Strike’s long-deceased school friends — said sister having risen to fame as a sulking model — dies on a sidewalk after a long fall, Strike investigates. The trail snakes through back alleys, nightclubs, limousines, well-appointed homes and rundown bars. The author’s descriptions are stunningly good. In an abandoned apartment, the silence “had that slack quality that speaks only of the indifference of uninhabited rooms.” Two fashion-obsessed women are “both as pristine and polished as life-size dolls recently removed from their cellophane boxes; rich-girl thin, almost hipless in their tight jeans, with tanned faces that had a waxy sheen especially noticeable on their foreheads, their long, gleaming dark manes with center partings, the ends trimmed with spirit-level exactitude.” To be sure, at times the novel lags; some of Strike’s interrogations go on far too long, becoming tedious. And the title is a real stinker. But in all the important ways, “The Cuckoo’s Calling” is a brilliant achievement, mordantly funny and monumentally absorbing. Life isn’t fair. If it were, this book would have been a galloping success long before anyone knew that Rowling had written it. Well, it wasn’t, and she did, and that’s that. Case closed. Is The Cuckoo's Calling a good book?But in all the important ways, “The Cuckoo's Calling” is a brilliant achievement, mordantly funny and monumentally absorbing. Life isn't fair. If it were, this book would have been a galloping success long before anyone knew that Rowling had written it. Is the cuckoos calling inappropriate?As for whether or not it's appropriate for children, the F word, the C word, and cocaine use all make an appearance as well as a mild sex scene. I would say it's probably fine for kids 15 & up, but it's your call, parents. Why did J. K. Rowling use Robert Galbraith?I think I write differently, because it's a very different genre. Why the name Robert Galbraith? I chose Robert because it's one of my favourite men's names, because Robert F Kennedy is my hero and because, mercifully, I hadn't used it for any of the characters in the Potter series or The Casual Vacancy. What is the story of the cuckoo's calling?When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case. |
