I’m a little late to the party here, because although I followed all the revelations* about J.K Rowling writing a mystery novel under a pen name (Robert Galbraith), I just now got around to actually reading the book. Which was a shame, because The Cuckoo’s Calling is really a cracker of a mystery novel.

I like mysteries and have read a trillion of them, but I tend to get disillusioned with how much they blend together. Yes, I realize that most mysteries are going to have a formula, but I have read enough “death in a quiet English village” books and “death in a major American city” books to last me a lifetime. Rowling’s book may not stray far from the formula, but it is so well done that it definitely doesn’t blend in with anything else–it has it’s own distinct voice and feeling. The basic story is that a down-on-his-luck PI in modern-day London is asked to investigate the death of celebrity. The police have ruled it a suicide, but her brother is convinced it was murder. So far, so formulaic. But the details and the characterizations in this story are fab. All of the characters are crisply drawn–my favorite was the PI’s temp assistant, a great, smart female character who is not the typical genre girl assistant. The details about life in London make the city feel like a character itself, and the mystery was twisty enough that I didn’t see the solution coming.

As I was reading the book I was asking myself, as I’m sure everyone was, whether I would have ever guessed it was by Rowling without being told. And the answer is . . . of course not. It’s a mystery novel written for adults and it’s not like any of the characters suddenly start casting spells. But once you know she’s the author, there are definitely elements that feel familiar. Like, the character names have a Harry Potter-ish ring to them: the murder victim is Lula Landry, and the PI’s name is Cormoran Strike. And, as many reviewers have pointed out, the plot leads to a lot of musings about celebrity culture and the paparazzi; one has to imagine that Rowling’s thoughts on this come from personal experience.

While the book wraps the central mystery up quite nicely, lots of threads are left hanging with the characters, who clearly have lots more to do. I found myself curious about how the PI would handle his disastrous love life, and whether the assistant would get do some real sleuthing of her own. Which is convenient, since the second Cormoran Strike novel, The Silkworm, was just released, and I am definitely looking forward to it.