The Cuckoo's Calling (A Cormoran Strike Novel)

by Robert Galbrath

Paperback, 2015

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Publication

Mulholland Books (2015), Edition: Reprint, 608 pages

Description

A brilliant mystery in a classic vein: 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 now living in his office. Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: his sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man. You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.… (more)

Media reviews

NRK

Ublodig, men ikkje blodfattig Når Harry Potter-forfattar J.K. Rowling går til krimmen, satsar ho meir på person- og miljøskildring enn på å dikte opp utspekulerte drapsmetodar. Det er heilt ok.

— 3 more

New York Times

In “The Cuckoo’s Calling” Ms. Rowling — er, Mr. Galbraith — seems to have similarly studied the detective story genre and turned its assorted conventions into something that, if not exactly original, nonetheless showcases her satiric eye (most in evidence in the Potter books in her

portraits of the bureaucrats and blowhards associated with the Ministry of Magic) and her instinctive storytelling talents.

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Slate

The Cuckoo’s Calling and Harry Potter both feature dead or absent parents, adoptees, and family intrigue. They both imagine highly complex worlds that are nonetheless knowable—if you study their laws closely—and amusing, and beautiful, and dangerous. If I’m honest, though, I liked Galbraith

just a bit better than late Rowling. (The first four Harry Potter books still reign supreme.) While both writers are funny, suspenseful, and sharp about race and class, he seems under less pressure to take himself and his story seriously. I wonder why.

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The Mail

There is no sign whatsoever that this is Galbraith’s first novel, only that he has a delightful touch, both for evoking London and for capturing a new hero. It is an auspicious debut.