The
Cuckoo’s Calling
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Book
report
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Table
of contents
Author 3
Plot 4
Characters
5
3.1 Cormoran Strike 5
3.2 Robin Ellacott 5
3.3 John Bristow 5
Detective
Novel 6
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.