Career of Evil

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thought this was the best of the series so far. I love the relationship between Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. This book gives us a chance to learn more about the back stories of both. They are complex and interesting characters and that is a big draw for me. On the other hand, the secondary characters – Robin’s fiancé Matthew and Cormoran’s girlfriend Ellen – suffer by comparison and one fails to see the attraction. The level of violence in this series could be off-putting to some, but it didn’t bother me as much in this one as the previous two. The mystery of solving the identity of the serial-killer takes a back-seat to the relationship between our protagonists. Though slow in the action department, it kept me guessing. Where do the characters go from here? We’ll have to wait for the next book to find out.

Book description: When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman’s severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible–and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality. With the police focusing on one of the suspects, Strike and Robin delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them…

The Silkworm

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another solid entry in the Cormoran Strike series. I love Robin, Cormoran’s resourceful secretary, who wants to learn about surveillance and become more than a mere secretary. J.K. Rowling skewers the publishing industry with this bizarre and macabre story. It’s so macabre it’s almost funny. Her characters are fully realized and memorable. The plot once again kept me guessing. I definitely look forward to more in this series.

Book description: When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days — as he has done before — and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel is published, it will ruin lives — so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him. And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before.

The Cuckoo’s Calling

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. Mystery, suspense, engaging characters, humor, and a satisfying ending. I didn’t guess the murderer, although he was one of my “suspects.” I had wondered about him, but I was still considering several other possibilities by the time the author revealed it. Comoran is a tough-guy wounded veteran, down-and-out, and somewhat cranky, but he has a good heart. With Robin, his temp secretary, I couldn’t help but think of “Batman and Robin”. Their relationship is wonderful – Robin turns out to be a very adept and enthusiastic partner. J.K. Rowling, writing as Galbraith, is no stranger to the lives of the rich and famous and the papparazi. She brings all of that to life, and the narrator, Robert Glenister, does the same with the various character’s voices.

Book Description: 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, the legendary 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.