The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Gailbraith (JK Rowling)

The famous Harry Potter novelist is back. And back with a bang. A Pseudonym to relieve herself of all the pressure on her, seems to have done the trick for Rowling. In her latest novel which is a murder mystery, she seems to have rediscovered the magic she seemed to have lost after the Potter series, in her slack, disappointing adult fiction, The Casual Vacancy.

The protagonist of The Cuckoo’s calling is Detective Cormoan Strike, who has glimpses and resemblance to Sherlock . 

Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel's suicide. After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

With a new Temporary Assistant Robin, he sets off to solve the mystery of the suicide of Lula Landry, the famous model, who (as the police investigation concluded, had committed suicide)

Rowling denied that revealing the book’s true author was part of an “elaborate marketing campaign to help boost sales” and said that if anyone had seen the “labyrinthine plans” she had laid to conceal her identity “they would realise how little I wanted to be discovered”.

Rowling does justice to the genre, weaving a classic detective novel. She seemed to have done her research well, and the story never seems raw or uncooked. With subtle hints of a sequel at the end, and Rowling’s own confirmation of the completion of the second book in the series, Rowling fans would be really eager to see what happens next in the life of Cormoran Strike.

Bytes and Banter Verdict: A Good Read  -  3/5