The Cuckoo's Calling

It seems no matter how popular the author is in another genre, what they really want to do is write a detective novel. Stephen King's next novel is a private eye book, and J.K. Rowling, who by earnings is the most successful writer on the planet, left the kids at Hogwarts and, under a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, penned a mystery called The Cuckoo's Calling.

The book was headed for the remainder bin until the cat got let out of the bag that Rowling was the author, and it's a pretty good book, as these things go. She hits on all the tropes of a successful private eye series--the hero is hunky but flawed, there's a book full of suspects, and the climax takes place when the detective confronts the killer. There's even a plucky sidekick. The only thing she didn't do is have all the suspects in a room together at the end.

The detective is Cormoran Strike (she even gives him a great name), a boozing bull of a man who had a leg blown off in Afghanistan. He's also the son of a Johnny-Rotten-like rock star. At the book's start, he's avoiding creditors and sleeping in his office after leaving his girlfriend. He literally knocks down his temp, Robin, as he runs out the door after the girlfriend. Robin is secretly thrilled to be working for a private eye, even one as down at his heels as Strike, even though he can't afford her.

Then, as these things always happen, a case falls in his lap. He's hired by a man who is the adopted brother of a supermodel, Lula Landry (the "Cuckoo" of the title). A few weeks earlier she did a swan dive off the balcony of her apartment. The police called it suicide, but the brother wants Strike to look into it.

I'm of two minds about this book. It's well-written, and it moves well, but there's something mechanical about it. Rowling has the reader follow Strike as he moves from witness to witness, some of high standing, such as a flamboyant fashion designer, a supermodel (whom he beds--if a man wrote this, I'd chalk it up to wish fulfillment), and Lula's sulky boyfriend, and some of low standing, such as an addict Lula befriended, or her birth mother. The book is structured like a peeling onion, and Strike pulls back another layer with each chapter. There's also the requisite conflict with the police, an age-old private eye trope.

The book is set up as a whodunit, but I didn't pick up on any of the clues, so the killer's identity was a surprise. This is clearly going to be the first of a series, but I doubt I'll read any more, as it didn't resonate with me.

There's not much interesting to quote from the book, but I did highlight one passage. In an homage to Raymond Chandler, Rowling does use some vivid similes, none so much as this one: "She looked away from him, drawing hard on her Rothman's; when her mouth puckered into hard little lines around her cigarette, it looked like a cat's anus."