Book Review : Cormoran Strike Novels by Robert Galbraith
Hundreds and hundreds of books are hyped every day. We are very spoiled for choice, hence my love for a good book review. The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith would probably not have made it to my bedside table had I not just finished reading The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (loved it, but it’s not for everyone!) and the news leaked that Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for the Harry Potter author. The Casual Vacancy, for me, was so masterful is its texture and pathos and understanding of the fragility of the human condition, that I had to read more by her! And so began my love affair with Cormoran Strike, amputee war veteran and illegitimate son of a rockstar turned private investigator catapulted into the public’s eye when he is approached by the brother of a supermodel to examine the circumstances of her death that the police ruled a suicide.
The story is multi-fasceted and fast moving. It bobs and weaves through paparazzi chases, Hollywood type parties and seductive, idle, wealthy weirdo’s. All of this as Cormoran’s own life slides into complications of its own, which fortunately don’t dull his attention to detail and deduction.
The second Cormoran Strike novel is The Silkworm. It thrusts Cormoran and his assistant, Robin, into a very bizarre scenario when a well known novelist disappears. It is gruesomely, compulsively clever reading and as we twist and turn from one stomach turning clue to another we learn more about the back stories and burgeoning friendship between our unlikely hero and his surprisingly proficient side-kick.
The third book is Career of Evil and is perhaps the book I’ve enjoyed most to date. The story opens with business ticking along nicely and Cormoran and Robin both in apparently ‘good’ places in their respective lives and relationships. The delivery, addressed to Robin, of a woman’s severed leg starts a downward spiral into an intense expose of both Cormoran’s and Robin’s younger years and the monsters, literal and metaphorical, that continue to haunt them. A story that introduces the concept of Acrotomophilia is virtually guaranteed to take you places you’ve never been before !
