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The Cuckoo's Calling-Book Report

983 / ~7 sternsternsternsternstern_0.2 Emil W. . 2014
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Hausübung
Englisch

Gymnasium Ried im Innkreis

1, Scharmberger, 2013

Emil W. ©

0.08 Mb
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ID# 38006









The Cuckoo’s Calling

Book report



















Table of contents

  1. Author 3

  2. Plot 4

  3. Characters 5

3.1 Cormoran Strike 5

3.2 Robin Ellacott 5

3.3 John Bristow 5

  1. Detective Novel 6

  2. Personal Review 7















Author



The front cover of the book tells us that the much unknown Robert Galbraith is the author of The Cuckoo’s Calling, but J.K. Rowling revealed in July 2013 that she actually wrote the book under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. She didn’t want to let people know that the novel was her act, because Rowling “yearned to go back to the beginning of her writing career in this new genre, to work without hype or expectations and to receive totally unvarnished feedback”. She would have liked to keep Robert Galbraith’s real identity as a secret for longer but in less than 3 months after the book release, it leaked through journalists to the public.

Rowling herself is a British author who got quite famous for the seven fantasy novels of the Harry Potter series which became bestsellers all over the world. She is 48 years old, has two kids and is one of the most influential authors on earth.




Plot



The private detective business is not going too well for Comoran Strike. He only got one loyal client left and is deep in the red. After his girlfriend Charlotte leaves Strike for another man he gets kicked out of his own apartment and has to move into his office. How lucky for Strike that the rich lawyer John Bristow hires him to reinvestigate the supposed suicide of his sister, Lula Laundry, half a year ago. Bristow tells Strike that he doesn’t believe Lula has jumped to death for her own will but was pushed out of the balcony by someone else. Lula was a famous model and so her death and the investigations about it were all over the news. Strike hesitates when he accepts the case, because for him it seemed to be fully solved.

With the help of his new temporary secretary Robin, Strike begins to interview a bunch of people like Lula’s security guard, personal driver, neighbors, friends and designer. Each character tells Strike more about the life of Lula Laundry and the circumstances under which she must have died. Strike finds out that the black adopted Lula was discovering her black roots the months before she had died. At the end Strike is sure to have the case solved and -as he has guessed - John Bristow appears in Strike’s office, wanting to talk his detective. Strike shares his results of the investigation with Bristow: Bristow himself has murdered his own sister because he found out that Lula cut him out of her will to give everything to her biological brother. As Bristow tries to kill Strike both get wounded and Robin, who was sent home earlier, appears and calls the police and ambulance.



3. Characters



3.1 Cormoran Strike

Private detective Strike plays the main role in the novel. As the book progresses we get to know more and more parts of Strike’s very interesting and fascinating back-story. Being in Afghanistan with the Military he has got one leg blown off so that he has got to wear a fake leg to walk. Strike also got this pretty famous rock star father but he doesn’t have a relationship with him whatsoever. It seems like Strike doesn’t even want to hear about him when someone asks him about his dad.

Strike himself is described as a big bellied, sort of ugly type of guy. Yet he is pretty intelligent, determined and a pretty sympathetic person. As a reader you always want to know more about his interesting character of Strike and his back story stays not fully uncovered till the end. This leads us to conclude that there might be sequels of the book published just like Rowling’s prior Harry Potter series.

3.2 Robin Ellacott

Robin is the first character we get to know in the novel when she accepts the proposal from her boyfriend Mathew. She is 25 years old and works as a temporary secretary. From the beginning Strike adores her professional work ethic, her ability to find out all the important things Strike needs to know and that she respects and understands him. Robin really likes to work with Strike, so she even turns down more lucrative job offers and accepts a pay cut. She is also very smart, inquisitive and secretly dreams of becoming a private detective herself.

3.3 John Bristow

There is no better word to describe Bristow as psychopath. He has killed both siblings he had – his brother Charlie when he was just a little boy, and his sister as a grown up lawyer – just so that he doesn’t have to share the attention from his parents with someone else. The weirdest thing though is that after getting away with killing Lula, he gets cocky and hires a detective to reinvestigate Lula’s death. This just doesn’t make much sense to me.





Detective Novel

Detective novels are probably one of the favorite reads for the British. They already have a pretty long history so there are plenty of them. The most famous one are the Sherlock Holmes stories, which fascinated whole generations. Those novels are always structured the same way.

  • The detective must be memorable

  • This crime must be significant

  • All the suspects, including the criminal, must be presented early in the story.

  • All clues discovered by the detective must be made available to the reader.

  • The solution must appear logical and obvious when the detective explains how the crime was solved.

    All these factors shape the phrase “whodunit?”





    Personal Review

    I thought that the novel was a great read even though sometimes it got a little boring because of the slow pace especially in the dialogs. The wonderful descriptions made me feel like actually being in the scene. I have to say that I liked the characters of the book much more than its actual plot. If there would ever be a sequel of the novel like it is expected, I am definitely going to read it.


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