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The Silkworm
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2016
Description
Private investigator Cormoran Strike must track down a missing writer — and a sinister killer bent on destruction — in this "wonderfully entertaining" mystery (Harlan Coben, New York Times Book Review) that inspired the acclaimed HBO Max series C.B. Strike.
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days — as he has done before — and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.
But as Strike investigates, he discovers that Quine's disappearance is no coincidence. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published, it would ruin lives — meaning that almost everyone in his life would have motives to silence him.
When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, Strike must race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before . . .
A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, The Silkworm is the second in J. K. Rowling's highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant, Robin Ellacott.
Praise
"Cormoran Strike is back, and so is his resourceful sidekick, Robin
Ellacott, a gumshoe team that's on its way to becoming as celebrated for
its mystery-solving skills as Nick and Nora Charles of "Thin Man" fame,
and Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander (a.k.a. the girl with the
dragon tattoo)."
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"'The last line of The Silkworm, which will lift the hearts of readers who have come to love its deeply sympathetic characters, offers the prospect of more of that joy both for her and for us."
—Charles Finch, USA Today (3.5/4 stars)
"Robert Galbraith... has written a second absorbing whodunit starring detective Corcmoran Strike to follow last year's stealth hit, The Cuckoo's Calling.... Astutely observed, well-paced... The Silkworm thoroughly engages as a crime novel."
—Sue Corbett, People
"...why is "likable" the first word that comes to mind upon finishing The Silkworm? Surely, that has something to do with Rowling's palpable pleasure in her newly chosen genre (the jig may be up with her Robert Galbraith pseudonym, but the bloom is still on her homicidal rose) and even more to do with her detective hero, who, at the risk of offending, is the second husband of every author's dreams."
—Louis Bayard, The Washington Post
The Silkworm is fast-paced and entertaining... Strike is heroic without intending to be and has a great back story. He's the illegitimate son of a rock star whose half-siblings grew up in privilege... And he's brooding, but not annoyingly so. Strike has all kinds of potential. It'd be a crime not to keep up with him."
—Sherryl Connelly, Daily News
"Having just the better part of a day and a night making my way through the 455 pages of The Silkworm ... I must say, I don't mind at all... The murder mystery at the heart of The Silkworm is a genuine mystery with an altogether satisfying resolution."
—Malcolm Jones, The Daily Beast
PRAISE FOR THE CUCKOO'S CALLING:
"The master is back. . . [Rowling] returns to the strengths that made Harry Potter great--the beautiful sense of pacing, the deep but illusionless love for her characters--without sacrificing the expanded range of The Casual Vacancy." --USA Today (3.5/4 stars)
"The master is back. . . [Rowling] returns to the strengths that made Harry Potter great--the beautiful sense of pacing, the deep but illusionless love for her characters--without sacrificing the expanded range of The Casual Vacancy." --USA Today (3.5/4 stars)
"A gritty, absorbing tale." --People
"Cleverly plotted... Rowling serves up a sushi platter of red herring, sprinkling clues along the way, before Strike draws a confession out of the killer in a climax straight out of Agatha Christie." --Entertainment Weekly
"Highly entertaining [with] a team whose further adventures the reader cannot help eagerly awaiting." --Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"[Rowling's] literary gift is on display in this work. She crafts an entertaining story [and] comes up with an ending that I'll admit I was surprised by. . . . A fun read, with a main character you can care about and one you'll want to see again in other adventures." --The Washington Post
