Review of Robert Galbraith's The Silkworm

The Silkworm, by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym of J. K. Rowling)

Do you remember when, about this time a year ago, Robert Galbraith, the author of the debut mystery, The Cuckoo's Calling, was revealed to be a pen name for J. K. Rowling, author of the ridiculously best-selling Harry Potter series? The Cuckoo's Calling had received respectable reviews, if not big sales, but the sales rocketed when the public learned that Rowling was the real author. Like most mystery fans, I read the book after the revelation and thought it was a more than respectable detective story by this masterful storyteller. My friend Maltese Condor gives a full review of The Cuckoo's Calling here.

There was a good deal of speculation last year about how the leak occurred. Months later, we learned that a partner in Rowling's solicitor's office blabbed about it "in confidence" to a friend of his wife's, and that was that. (Can you believe the idiocy of that lawyer? He's been fined and rebuked by his professional society, and Rowling won damages against his firm––which she donated to charity––so maybe that will wise him up.) Some suspected that Rowling herself had something to do with the leak, wanting to increase sales of the first book and later books she planned to write in the series. As I'll explain later, I think that's unlikely.

First, let's focus on the new Cormoran Strike/Robin Ellacott book, The Silkworm. As the story begins, Cormoran Strike's private detective business is booming––quite a contrast to its sad state at the beginning of the previous book. True, a lot of the new business is spying on straying spouses and lovers, but it pays the bills. And that's important, since Cormoran is anxious to repay the money he reluctantly borrowed from Johnny Rokeby, his rock-star father, the man who fathered him via a fling with Cormoran's groupie mother and who refused to acknowledge paternity until the DNA test came through. Cormoran's only seen Rokeby twice and doesn't feel any desire to see him ever again, but he resorted to borrowing the money from him to get the detective agency started.

As usual, Cormoran's knee is bothering him. He's a sizable man (Cormoran is the name of a Welsh giant, after all) and the prosthesis he swapped for his lower leg via an IED in Afghanistan can be rough on his stump. So he was not in the best mood when one of his corporate clients is rude to him and his assistant, Robin, in his waiting room. Then, the frumpy, down-at-heel Leonora Quine refuses to leave the waiting room until she can be added to Strike's client list. Cormoran, being the contrarian––and good guy––that he is, fires the monied corporate client and takes on Leonora.

Leonora asks Strike to find her writer husband, Owen Quine. Quine's made a habit over the years of going walkabout, but now he's been gone a good 10 days and Leonora wants him back. Not that she misses him, unfaithful and egomaniacal as he is, but he does pay the bills and the Quines have a developmentally disabled daughter, Orlando––who does miss her father.

Cormoran and Robin get on the case immediately, even though they sincerely doubt Leonora's blithe assurance that Quine's agent will pay their fees. Robin is eager to learn more about the detective trade; she's been studying hard and wants to do more than be a general office assistant. After all, she could do PA work at a company that could pay twice as much as Strike can afford, as her fiancé, Matthew, reminds her regularly. Matthew would much prefer that Robin get a better-paying job, especially since it would remove her from Cormoran, because Matthew can't disguise that he is jealous and suspicious of Cormoran.

Cormoran soon finds that there may be good reason for Quine's deciding to lie low. He's written a novel full of graphic sex, violence and bodily functions that also libels everybody in his professional and personal life through its barely disguised characters. A lot of people don't want that manuscript––or Quine––to see the light of day. And, thus, this soon turns into a murder investigation case, and a particularly horrific one.

Plots about the publishing world are a dime a dozen, but when the story is told by such a hugely successful author as J. K. Rowling, it feels more scandalously revelatory. Writers, agents, editors and publishers in the book are almost universally self-centered, and several are personally repulsive and/or nasty pieces of work. And, wow, are they chiselers! No doubt they all make more money than Cormoran, but whenever they agree to answer some of his questions, they insist it be at some pricey restaurant and that he foot the bill.

The book also includes some serious jabs at new authors and self-published writers. One character observes that there are too many writers and not enough readers. Quine's agent complains that it seems like everybody thinks they can write, but she's inundated with manuscripts that are just "unimaginable shit."

I couldn't help thinking that Rowling would much have preferred that these observations on the publishing world and the people in it be attributed to that Robert Galbraith guy whom nobody knows. I got a kick out of Rowling's jaundiced view of the world she's found herself in, but I'm guessing there will be some negative fallout for her. And that's why I very much doubt she had anything to do with the leaking of her identity as the writer behind Robert Galbraith.

For the reader, knowing that Rowling is the real author of The Silkworm does give it a bit of the flavor of an exposé of the publishing industry. But, much as I enjoyed that, I didn't find that it distracted from or lessened the impact of the detective story. The mystery was well constructed, with numerous clues dropped along the way. For those who want to try to solve the mystery while they read, I won't spoil it, but I will say that in addition to the usual physical clues, Rowling tends to favor clues that arise from the way people act or have acted. The climax was both creepily suspenseful and then filled with action and danger.

As we'd expect from Rowling, the best part of the book is its characters. We're learning more of the background of Cormoran and Robin, and of their current life situations. Cormoran struggles with his emotions about the upcoming marriage of his ex-girlfriend, Charlotte, to a wealthy peer. Given Matthew's animosity to Cormoran, Robin is reluctant to talk to him about how much she wants to become a detective. We're also introduced to other friends and family of the pair, and I have a feeling we'll be seeing some of them in the future, especially Cormoran's younger half-brother Al, one of Johnny Rokeby's legitimate kids.

One sure sign that The Silkworm is a good read is the letdown I felt when I finished it. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Cormoran and Robin just yet. All I can do for now, though, is to add this series to my must-read list and hope that "Robert Galbraith" continues with it for a good long time.

Note: Portions of this review may appear on Amazon and other reviewing sites under my usernames there.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Quietly, in the early spring, a novel by a new author Robert Galbraith called The Cuckoo's Calling was published. The author's note gave a short bio reporting that Robert Galbraith spent several years with the Royal Military Police before being attached to the SIB (Special Investigative Branch), the plainclothes branch of the RMP. He left the military in 2003, and was working in the civilian security industry. The idea for Cormoran Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who returned to the civilian world. "Robert Galbraith" is a pseudonym.

As The Cuckoo's Calling begins, 25-year-old Robin Ellacott has just experienced some of the best times of her life. She had moved to London to be with her boyfriend, Michael, and last night she became romantically engaged to Michael at the Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus. While Robin looks for a real job, she is working as a secretary, through a temp agency. On this morning, she is on her way to a new assignment. She is about to knock on an office door when she is literally bowled over by a very large, disheveled man, who bursts out of the door and nearly knocks her down a stairwell. This bulldozer turns out to be Cormoran Strike; an apt appellation, since he shares a forename with the first giant felled by Jack, in the fairy tale, Jack the Giant Killer.

Like Robin, Cormoran has also had an epoch-changing 12 hours. He has just broken up with his long-term girlfriend, Charlotte, who dented his head with a heavy glass ashtray as a goodbye present. He is on his last leg, both literally and financially, since he lost his lower leg not so long ago in war action in Afghanistan. Now he's lost his home, belongings and security, and is not sure what is coming around the corner––other than Robin.

Almost before Cormoran can pull himself together, Robin is introducing him to a new, wealthy client who wants him to investigate the death of his adopted sister, Lula Landry. She was a most beautiful supermodel, who appeared to have jumped out of a top story window in a suicidal depression. The client, John Bristow, is convinced that she was pushed. So, even with his life in disarray, Strike falls back into the familiar soldierly state of doing what must be done, without question or complaint.

A cuckoo is a small, brownish-gray bird that lays its eggs in another bird's nest. In this book, the cuckoo gives clues to the mystery. There are certainly birds growing up in others' nests in the plot, not only in the victim's family, but Strike's as well. He counted at least 17 schools that he had been hustled in and out of during his childhood. He was the illegitimate son of a famous rocker who cared little for him. The cuckoo is also known for its repetitive cry, and there are many repetitive cuckoo-like cries from all sorts of characters in this book, which give the reader pointers in the right direction.

The character Strike is fairly standard for a fictional PI. He comes from a policing background, he has a disastrously complex personal life and he has a great new young partner––I mean secretary––who is one of the only good things going for him. The case is not that unusual either; I have read a few "was he pushed or did he jump" scenarios. But what I really enjoyed was the ambience of London, the view through opera glasses at the lives of the rich and famous, and how the author took these ingredients and made an excellent reading experience from them. You would never guess that this was a debut novel. And of course it wasn't.

As it happens, Robert Galbraith is pure fiction as well. This is a nom de plume for the very well-known J. K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame. Rowling has been quoted in a British newspaper as saying, "I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience. It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name."

Since the news broke, New Statesman reports that the book's sales from Amazon alone have gone up more than 150,000%. Rowling once said, "The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous." She has also been quoted as saying, "I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do––ever––was write novels."

In that case, it is not surprising that Rowling has continued to write novels. Her last published Harry Potter story, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published six years ago, in July of 2007. She did publish an adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, that came out last year and sold like hotcakes. I must admit is on my wish list for when it comes out in paperback, which is any day now.

Someone seeking anonymity can change appearance, name and alter a biography, but experts will tell you that a voice will always reveal the real identity.

Of course, with the knowledge of hindsight, I can hear the Rowling voice in Galbraith's words. Robin, the character who opened the book, immediately charmed me, and I was firmly a Cormoran supporter before the first chapters were done, just as I was with young Harry P. The wonders of London were described so that I could visualize them, as I did the peripatetic stairway at Hogwarts.

Obviously, Rowling is not the first author to write under an assumed name. In 1870, Charlotte Brontë admitted that she and her sisters had been writing under masculine names. Well-known author Nora Roberts writes under at least three other names. Even Stephen King tried out a nom de plume or two; the best known of which is Richard Bachman.

Donald Westlake was an American writer with over a hundred novels and nonfiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, much of it comic capers, and he wanted to try to see if he would be as successful in a different guise. He began a series of books that he was writing simultaneously in order to keep his character consistent. He wrote the books under the pen name Sam Holt. His publisher, unknown to him, let the bookstores in on the secret in order to boost the sales of the book. In the introduction to One of Us Is Wrong, Westlake said he became aware of this and he lost heart and did not finish the series for years. On the other hand, he must not have completely lost heart, since he is known to have written under about a total 16 pseudonyms.

The question is: Did Rowling countenance the leak to the British newspapers? Bob Minzesheimer of USA TODAY speculates that she did, because she was not very angry at being outed. Either way, I hope there is another book in this series. I will get it ASAP. I am anxious to know what happens to Strike, and what the future holds for Robin. It will come as no surprise that Strike solves this very high-profile case and, of course, now he has a name. What will he do with it?