The Silkworm
Robert Galbraith. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $28 (464p) ISBN 978-0-316-20687-7
J.K. Rowling, under her Galbraith pseudonym, again demonstrates her adroitness at crafting a classic fair-play whodunit in a contemporary setting, peopled with fully realized primary and secondary characters. PI Cormoran Strike, who debuted in 2013's The Cuckoo's Calling, has had a professional renaissance after his success in that book. To spite an uppity client, he accepts Leonora Quine's request to trace her missing husband, novelist Owen Quine. Leonora is pretty sure that Owen is at a writer's retreat, but has hit a dead end trying to get its address. Meanwhile, someone is following Leonora, and excrement is being shoved through her mail slot. Strike begins his search in London's literary circles, aided by his resourceful assistant, Robin Ellacott. He eventually finds a horrifically mutilated Owen, who was killed in a manner apparently copied from a controversial unpublished manuscript. The evolving relationship between Strike and Robin, whose fiancé objects to her choice of work, is realistically portrayed, and Golden Age fans will be delighted by passages that could have been written by John Dickson Carr (e.g., "Turning up his coat collar Strike thought he knew, now, what the meaning was: of a dwarf in a bloody bag, of the horns under the Cutter's cap and, cruelest of all, the attempted drowning"). Agent: Neil Blair, the Blair Partnership (U.K.). (June)
Details
Reviewed on: 06/23/2014
Release date: 06/19/2014
Genre: Fiction
Paperback - 464 pages - 9780316206891
Paperback - 464 pages - 9780316486385
Mass Market Paperbound - 672 pages - 9780316486484
Hardcover - 464 pages - 9780316206877
Hardcover - 736 pages - 9780316410717
Paperback - 466 pages - 9780316377478
Paperback - 368 pages - 9788983925282
Paperback - 352 pages - 9788983925299
Mass Market Paperbound - 464 pages - 9780316302784
Mass Market Paperbound - 672 pages - 9780316351980
Compact Disc - 14 pages - 9781478980902
Open Ebook - 384 pages - 9780316206914