OK, it took me forever to finish The Casual Vacancy. I probably should have liked it—I know almost all of my friends did—but I just couldn’t with the Little Britain mentality and Middle England class warfare antics that J.K. Rowling describes with such unvarnished authenticity. Having lived in England for a few years, I found the petty, mean-spirited antics of the main characters to be just too real to make this an enjoyable read. Mrs Smith Reads The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Writers, Publishers, and Murderers
I read the first Cormoran Strike novel for book club. I picked up the second Cormoran Strike novel because I’d already become attached to the characters, and I needed to find out what J.K. Rowling was going to do to with them. The Silkworm (2014) by “Robert Galbraith” follows the continuing story of Cormoran Strike, London private detective, and his assistant Robin. When a dowdy, desperate woman walks into Cormoran’s office looking for her missing, semi-famous, author husband, Cormoran takes her case despite his concerns […]
The Silkworm
Leonora Quine wants private detective Cormoran Strike to find her husband, writer Owen Quine. He’s been missing for two weeks which, as it turns out, is not unusual for him. She’s sure he’s at a writer’s retreat. But Own turns up dead–murdered in a grisly, bizarre fashion. At the same time, his book is published–a grisly, bizarre book that infuriates Owen’s editors, publishers, lovers, and fellow writers with its gruesome, barely fictionalized depictions of them. Everyone’s a suspect, and they’re all also pretty unpleasant people. But are […]
2 for 1: Harry Potter and the Cuckoo’s Calling and Harry Potter and the Silkworm
The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm are the first two entries in a new detective series featuring Cormoran Strike and written by much-beloved J.K. Rowling (her pseudonym should hopefully not be a spoiler, as it has been well-publicized and Rowling has been interviewed as Galbraith by now). Strike is a veteran and an amputee, struggling to turn a profit as a private detective in The Cuckoo’s Calling when he is approached to investigate the death of a famous model Lula Landry. Strike is accompanied by […]
The Adventures of Strike and Robin, Vol. II: The Publishing Industry
Ugh, this is going to be one of those reviews where I just flounder for things to say because a) I waited too long to write it, and b) I can’t really sum up my feelings into precise words. The short of it: I really, really, really liked this book. I still don’t quite LOVE it, but I’m allllmost there. A couple more books should do the trick. (In fact, I did like it better than The Cuckoo’s Calling, although at certain points it was much […]
Yup, another review of The Cuckoo’s Calling
If I counted correctly, I’m the sixth Cannonballer to pick up The Cuckoo’s Calling, so you’re probably already familiar with the summary: injured war veteran and private detective Cormoran Strike, down on his luck and down to his last pence; his new girl Friday, Robin, newly engaged and enthralled with the prospect of working with a real live detective; a celebrity suicice–OR IS IT?–and a bunch of usual suspects, all with a conceivable motive and a suspicious air about them. None of the individual characters were […]