REVIEW: The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

Hello?

Did I really finish reading another book? The second book this month? ~~WTF REALLY~~

My life is such a misery, lol. I said to myself that I’d be reading more, but all I did was excessively fangirling over k-pop on twitter. I’m really sorry if that bothered your twitter timeline so much…

But anyways, a review! For a detective book which is not my usual reading genre (although I’m such a Sherlock Holmes trash…)

The Cuckoo’s Calling
by Robert Galbraith ~~(J.K. Rowling)~~

Rating:
Goodreads | Amazon
Book Depository | Barnes & Noble
Published: April 18th, 2013
(Russian version: February 13th, 2014)
Format: Paperback

Synopsis: A brilliant mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel’s suicide.
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, thelegendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

You may think you know detectives, but you’ve never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you’ve never seen them under an investigation like this. (cr.: Goodreads)

Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for ~~the Queen of magical world a.k.a.~~ J.K. Rowling, who created a whole magical world of Harry Potter, and who also wrote Casual Vacancy, her first realistic fiction after HP. Rowling aimed to have her true identity behind Galbraith hidden for a while, but journalists figured it out much sooner than she expected, after analyzing the writing styles of both The Cuckoo’s Calling and Casual Vacancy.

The Cuckoo’s Calling is the first book in Cormoran Strike detective series, resolving around a private detective Strike and his temporary secretary Robin Ellacott solving the mysterious death of top model Lula Landry.

The book in overall was very luring, with lots of details that you can’t help but pay attention to, but, to be honest – I guessed the murderer way faster than I got past half of the story. Maybe it’s because I watched too much of Crime Scene (Korean TV show), or read Sherlock Holmes too many times to understand some basics of detective genre to be actually surprised. Although I can confess that at the latter part of the book I was flustered for a good 5 minutes before convincing myself to stick to my original suggestion, which in the end turned out to be true. So, on detective part, it was fun and convincing, but not much to my own surprise.

On character relationships and development part, JKR did a good job making these aspects very detailed. Not only on Cormoran’s character, but also on those involved in the death mystery (John Bristow, Tansy Bestigui, Rochelle Onifad, Tony Landry, etc…), it really showed how every little detail or fact can build a solid picture of someone’s character when solving a crime. What I especially appreciated is that all those relationships didn’t slow down the pace of the detective plot overall.

Looking forward to the next parts of these detective series, and I hope JKR won’t disappoint me with the plot twists (which everyone loves, right?)

I know I promised to be more active in book community, but… well, I think I will need to write a separate post about some of my concerns, and thoughts, and decisions. I probably am not regretting being so slow and low on social media, mostly because I’m so used to that I don’t feel like I need to change anything. Plus considering that I stopped chasing after good statistics, I don’t think I have to push myself way too hard when it’s not pleasing me at all.

Anyways, I’d like to thank every single one follower of my tiny blog for your compassion, love for books, and your understanding. I’m soon hitting my 6 month blog anniversary, and I honestly don’t know what I should do with it. Maybe a Q&A session?

Please don’t hesitate to leave comments,