The Cuckoos Calling Robert Galbraith

published under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo’s Calling is Rowling’s first foray into the detective fiction and with her new venture; she has yet again proved that she is a master of storytelling. Rowling’s book does not put the readers in frenzy; there are no fast paced, mysterious twists at every turn of the book; no use of gizmos or technology to solve the crime, but the good old police work, the use of “gray cells” so to say and this is what makes the book unique in itself. It might also be one of the reasons the book did not fare so well in sales before Rowling’s name was associated with it. Unlike the modern detective fiction, The Cuckoo’s Calling reads more like the 20th century novel and thus, even without fast paced scenes, non-existent technology, the book cannot be kept down.

The novel begins with the fall of famous model to her death from a Mayfair balcony which is immediately classified as suicide by police and media. However, not believing the narrative fed by police and media, her brother employs the services of a not so famous private detective, Comoron Strike to investigate her death. Anything but likeable to begin with, Strike is struggling with his own troubled past and financial crisis and accepts to investigate the case which in his own words “…was probably as thoroughly investigated as anything can be. Millions of people, and media from all over the world, were following the police’s every move. They would have been twice as thorough as usual.” Like Christie’s Poirot, Strike is skilled and organized with punctilious observation skills and a penchant to solve crime, however, unlike him; he is fallen with a bleak future, “Now, he was a limping man in a creased shirt, trading on old acquaintances, trying to do deals with policemen who would once have been glad to take his calls…”

Commencing on a quiet note with the description of Robin, who later becomes Strike’s Watson, the book moves on a rather slow and steady pace throughout

The author moves methodically to hint at the motivations that guide the behavior of every character, “Why would she tell the truth on essential point, but surround it with easily disproven falsehoods? Why would she lie about what she had been doing when she heard shouting from Landry’s flat? Strike remembered Adler: ‘A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous.’ Tansy had come along today to make a last attempt to find someone who would believe her, and yet swallow the lies in which she insisted on swaddling her evidence.”