The Silkworm wasn’t quite as stellar as The Cuckoo’s Calling, but still an interesting and well-written detective story. I wasn’t quite as wrapped up in this case as I was in Lula Landry’s (probably because the victim wasn’t so likable), and I thought the ending was a bit outrageous, but the Robin & Strike relationship progressed wonderfully and it had a great cast of characters.
“Writers are a savage breed, Mr. Strike. If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill. If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels.”
After the success of the Lula Landry case, Strike has seen his business explode to the point where he’s working constantly. He has his pick of wealthy clients with cheating spouses to choose from, but ends up taking a missing persons case from a mousy woman named Leonora Quine, whose asshole author husband Owen has disappeared (again). Just before his disappearance, Quine completed a novel guaranteed to rock the literary world, and when he’s found dead, everyone mentioned in the novel becomes a suspect.
Everyone in Quine’s life — his drunken editor, a famous douchebag author, his bitch of an agent, his wife, his girlfriend — gets a nasty treatment in the book. Galbraith does a great job of introducing these characters to the reader, so when you meet them in Quine’s book, you know exactly who they are.
Like I said, the ending kind of came out of nowhere, but it was entertaining nonetheless. And the Robin/Strike relationship is moving at an enjoyably slow pace. I love watching their business relationship grow, while the romance is still (mostly) on the back burner.
One more note — I tip my hat to the narrator of the audiobook, who had to fake an almost consumptive cough for one of the characters throughout the whole novel. No way that man didn’t do permanent damage to his voice with that one!
