The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel) / Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

The big scuttlebutt in the publishing world last summer was the debut of crime writer Robert Galbraith, who, it was discovered in pretty short order, was none other than Harry Potter’s creator J.K. Rowling. Of course after the true identity of the author was revealed sales skyrocketed, but the attention, it turned out, was warranted.

In the first novel in the series, The Cuckoo’s Calling, Galbraith/Rowling introduced the reader to a London-based detective by the name of Cormoran Strike, an ex-soldier from the war in Afghanistan, illegitimate son of a famous British rocker. The Silkworm starts its narrative thread several months after the events in Cuckoo, in which Strike embarrassed the metropolitan police force by more or less independently solving a high-profile case involving a young Kate Moss-type character. This time the story centers on the grisly murder of a midlist author, which grabs the tabloid headlines and captures the imagination of the capital. It all takes place in the rarefied world of publishing, something Rowling must know a thing or two about, where reputations and egos have to be stroked and nurtured, and there exist many grudges and motives for murder.

The Silkworm makes the perfect eBook to read on a tablet. There are so many places and landmarks you want to look up to document with pictures, or refresh your memory as the case may be: the Talgarth Road artists studios where the murder took place, Hamley’s on Regent Street, the music shops on Denmark Street, the River Café, etc. etc. I’m all for picturing things in your mind’s eye, but when it’s based on a real place in a real city, and one that I'm quite partial to, I love to be an armchair traveler with the help of my iPad!

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