The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel) Review

The Silkworm was a fantastic novel written by J.K Rowling. I have never been a huge fan of detective novels, but I really enjoy anything that J.K Rowling writes. I previously read (and reviewed) The Cuckoo's Calling so I knew once I saw there was a new book released I needed to download it to my Kindle.

The Silkworm was a book that had me extremely engaged while I was reading it, but was easy for me to put down and come back to. I didn’t feel that from chapter to chapter I needed to continue reading right away. It took me a few weeks to get through the entire novel since I only read a chapter or two at a time, but overall I thought the story itself was excellent.

The protagonist of The Silkworm is Cormoran Strike, a private detective in the city of London. His brilliant discovery of the true killer of Luna Landry has launched Strike into the public eye. He is taking work as it comes in to his firm with the help of Robin his assistant. At the start of the novel, Leonora comes into Strike’s office hoping that he can help her to find her husband who has disappeared. Famous author,  Owen Quine disappears quite often on his wife Leonora however this time is different since he has never been gone this long. Strike agrees to take on the case and starts learning all the inner details of Quines professional life.

Strike mingles with and interrogates a myriad of characters on his journey to find the truth. This book truly showed the inner workings of the writing and editing process since Quine had previously written a novel that is under extreme scrutiny in the publishing world. Each character in his book is based on someone he interacted with in real life and the theme of his book is beyond graphic and gory.  After Strike finds Quine dead in the same manner the main character in his book died, he knows that things aren’t as they seem. 

With a slew of helpful friends and a strong assistant by his side, Strike is able to solve the mystery in spite of interference from the police and makes sure the culprit is placed behind bars.  Although I enjoyed this book, I didn’t have a clue who the killer was until Strike himself stated it. I had my suspicions about every character that passed through the novel and actually was quite suspicious about the character that actually committed the murder but didn’t know for certain who it was. 

Although I would much rather read another Harry Potter book, I like pretty much anything J.K. Rowling comes up with and will continue reading whatever she puts out (even if it is under a pseudonym!).

What have you been reading lately?