Reviewed by DAVID VINEYARD:         

ROBERT GALBRAITH (J. K. ROWLING) – The Cuckoo’s Calling. Mulholland Books, US, hardcover, 2013. First published in the UK by Sphere Books, 2013.

ROBER GALBRAITH Cuckoo's Calling

   It was no surprise that this critically acclaimed book went from near obscurity to bestseller status when it was revealed Robert Galbraith was none other than J.K. Rowling, the mega-selling author of the Harry Potter series. It was no real shock the book was well written. It may, however, come as a surprise to some readers who avoided the book that its virtues are its own and not second hand Pottery. The Cuckoo’s Calling is one of the better debut mysteries I’ve been lucky enough to read in recent years written by anyone under any name.

   Cormoran Strike is a burly London-based private investigator who lost a leg in Afghanistan, and runs a one man operation. He’s more in the line of the Continental Op than Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, and neither a mental or physical superman nor tarnished knight. If any kind of knight he’s the Green Knight whose wound never heals.

   His artificial leg is a realistic problem, but never used as a gimmick. It’s something that happened to him and effects his life, but not melodrama. He’s not angry or bitter, but he isn’t happy about it either. It’s more often an obstacle and hindrance — or a source of unwanted vulnerability. For all his size, training, and toughness, vulnerable is a word you will associate with Strike.

   We meet Strike as he’s about to hire a new temp from the Temporary Solution Agency. Her name is Robin Ellacott, an attractive twenty-five year old engaged to her boyfriend Matthew that same day. Robin is the closest the book gets to a character who might fit in the Harry Potter saga. She’s smart, she’s quick, and she is just a shade out of step with the world around her. She’s no Lucy Hamilton, Moneypenny, Della Street, or John J. Malone’s Maggie. She is more involved in the action and more important to it, something Strike didn’t know he needed, a crutch.

   And she is thrilled when she finds out what Strike’s profession is; she’s dreamed about this since she was a child. An engagement and her fantasy job — what a great day.

   She and Strike meet cute. He runs into her on the stairs and nearly sends her toppling. He’s gruff and just a bit wounded in a slightly romantic way and she is young and optimistic. He agrees to try her out, but only because he has a client coming. It won’t be for long, he can’t pay her what she should get anyway.

   John Bristow is the client, and he thinks his half sister’s suicide was foul play. His sister was Lula Landry, the supermodel known as Cuckoo, and the reason for the haunted look in Cormoran Strike’s eyes. Lula wasn’t easy either: “… the lies she told were weaved into the fabric of her being, her life; so that to live with her was to become enmeshed by them, to wrestle her for the truth …”

   She’s dead now and the fabric of lies has to be unraveled, even those he may have told himself to stay with her.

   The case grows deeper, it becomes clear there was murder involved, and Strike finds himself relying more and more on the bright and empathic Robin. As the book progresses it is clear to us and to Strike that Robin is something he has needed for a long time, a connection with humanity.

   Strike may not strike a Byronic figure at first glance, but the shadows haunting him are real and deep, the book is dark, but never gloomy, and Robin’s touch of optimism and a trace of whimsey keep Strike and the novel in balance. There is no Dis-Pollyanna voice here, no brutal violence in place of plot, no poor imitation of Spillane or Parker. This is a mature and exciting hard boiled mystery with what promises to be an important new protagonist.

   This could easily have gone wrong in other hands, the Byronic wounded soldier either too much a romantic figure or too pitiable, but it is kept in perfect balance. You pull for Strike for the same reason Robin does, because he won’t give up, even when the darkness gathered in his soul tells him to. His one connection to Harry Potter may be that he is an orphan of sorts — especially from the army, as set apart by his artificial leg as Harry was by that scar on his forehead. The scars are visible reminders of the darkness that has touched them.

   The pair find themselves plunged into the artificial world of multimillionaire models, designers, rock stars, drugs, champagne, and all that accompanies it until there is another murder, and Strike himself is in danger.

   Long before this was revealed to be Rowling’s work it was getting critical praise if few sales (about 15 K in the UK — there was no American edition), many of them praising Galbraith for bringing the hard-boiled private genre back to life with an important new character in Cormoran Strike.

   That may be the biggest shock here, it is a very good hard-boiled eye novel just realistic enough to feel real and just out of the ordinary enough to be fun. Strike may be the most promising and least derivative private eye since the boom of the eighties. I didn’t know what to expect when I gambled on this one, but I never expected how perfect the voice or how far from Harry Potter this is; only the literacy and insight are the same.

   There is no question Rowling writes well. Even if you hate Harry Potter, the writing is very good. That’s true here. The style is nothing like Potter save being in the third person, but it is as perfect for this genre as it was for the juvenile fantasy.

   A few examples:

   His notebook lay open before him at a page full of truncated sentences and questions …

   Even the pale pugnacious commuters squashed into the Tube carriage around her were gilded by by the radiance of the ring (Robin’s wedding ring) …

   Instinct was clawing at him like an inopportune dog.

   It stated to rain on on Wednesday. London weather; dank and gray, through which the old city presented a stolid front, pale faces under black umbrellas, the eternal smell of damp clothing, the steady pattering on Strike’s office window in the night.

   He felt weary and sore, very conscious of the pain in his leg, of his unwashed body, of the greasy food lying heavily in his stomach.

   We aren’t in Hogwarts anymore. Nor are we in the world of borrowed Chandler and Macdonald. She recognizes and plays with the genres familiar tropes, but she never relies on them for second hand atmosphere or shorthand in lieu of narrative.

   I can’t oversell this. It’s that good, a well-written mystery, a well-observed novel, involving characters, a sense of threat and danger, heroes to cheer for, and believable bad guys to hiss. This is one of the most confident debuts I can remember in the hard boiled stakes. It isn’t perfect, few things are, but I’m concentrating on the good things because I know quite a few hard-boiled fans will likely be put off by the Harry Potter connection or even Rowling’s superstar status. She seems to have done something rare, step out of her comfort zone successfully and be accepted for it. Of course Harry Potter sales didn’t hurt, the Potter books had more than enough adult readers to propel this to the heights.

   Rowling/Galbraith ends on a line of poetry appropriate to this book: I am become a name.

   J. K. Rowling was already a name, but now so are Robert Galbraith and Cormoran Strike.