I wish there was a way to unknow that Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling: despite her apparent efforts to break into mystery writing anonymously, this is the secret that everyone knows and I, at least, couldn't help but make mental comparisons to the Harry Potter oeuvre. I suspect that was the exact situation Rowling was trying to avoid, but I'm not going to feel too badly for the richest author in the world. And fair or not, I kept wondering throughout this book: If Rowling hadn't written The Cuckoo's Calling, would anyone be reading it?
I enjoyed the introduction: Tall and pretty with long, strawberry-blonde hair,
The girl was doubled up in pain against the office door, whimpering. Judging by the lopsided way she was hunched, with one hand buried deep under the lapel of her coat, Strike deduced that he had saved her by grabbing a substantial part of her left breast.Awkward. Soon interrupted by a client, the temp gets to work, showing much initiative and intuition, and it is hours before the two are alone and able to introduce themselves properly:
"Sorry I kept calling you Sandra; she was the last girl. What's your real name?"I've quoted at length because that payoff made me laugh out loud and I thought, "Okay, this is a grownup book, and since the joke wasn't actually spelled out (even though these two scenes are three chapters apart), I feel like Rowling is respecting my intelligence as a reader". I expected there would be more funny and clever bits, but sadly, there weren't; this is just a rather bloated mystery with an unsatisfactory solution.
"Robin."
"Robin," he repeated. "That'll be easy to remember."
He had some notion of making a jocular allusion to Batman and his dependable sidekick, but the feeble jest died on his lips as her face turned brilliantly pink. Too late, he realized that the most unfortunate construction could be put on his innocent words. Robin swung the swivel chair back towards the computer monitor, so that all Strike could see was an edge of a flaming cheek. In one frozen moment of mutual mortification, the room seemed to have shrunk to the size of a telephone kiosk.
The best part of The Cuckoo's Calling are the characters of Strike and Robin: they are both bright and interesting and good at what they do, and even though she is meant to be a temp, it's obvious early on that their meeting is the beginning of a dynamic partnership. But while I can appreciate that the first in a planned series of books needs to give some backstory, there was way too much about Strike's history. Did he need to have a rock star father and a groupie mother? Did he need to have been recently rendered homeless by his posh and gorgeous fiancée? Did he need to have been a wounded war hero? And if his character needed to be all of these things, did they all need to be hauled out in the first book? 450 pages seems long for a mystery and every time someone asked Strike what it was like to be Jonny Rokeby's son, it felt like a distraction from the mystery: and I do understand that this book is meant to be a comment on the nature of fame and the relationship between celebrities and their fans and paparazzi (something I'm sure Rowling knows all too well), but too much of that also detracted from the mystery. Deeby Macc saying that Lula was essentially killed by the press brought to mind Princess Diana, but then characters go for a walk and note the Princess Diana memorial fountain, and then later Strike makes the conscious connection between the two, and yes, I get it, and by this point I no longer felt like Rowling respected my intelligence.
As for the mystery : I'm not a huge reader of the genre, but as I would call myself a Raymond Chandler fan, I can confidently say that The Cuckoo's Calling ain't no Chandler. Basically, Strike interviews everyone the police already talked to (and these were investigating detectives who felt the pressure of having their every move scrutinised by the media and superfan bloggers), getting everyone to reveal just a little bit more this time around. Eventually, Strike can prove that Lula didn't commit suicide (and I'll call that not a spoiler because how else could it be a murder mystery?), and he meets the suspect in one of those never-ending "you did this and this and thought you got away with it" speeches, saying the suspect had "the luck of the devil" which is how the reader can now dismiss all of the red herrings (a dyslexic witness misunderstood what was read, a Polish maid's English wasn't good enough to understand what she had heard, a cheating spouse was reluctant to come forward with the truth) and case closed. **spoilers here** Okay, I NEED to comment on the roses: how did Strike make the leap from a water puddle in the hall to John taking some from Deeby's flat? How many roses would it take to leave a big enough puddle for someone to slip in? Would Lula really open her door if her peephole was blocked by the roses? Wouldn't petals and leaves have been strewn about her place in the struggle? And if Jonah saw Lula fall, why didn't he come forward? Even if he didn't see the push, why didn't he come forward? **end spoilers** I wasn't impressed with the mystery, at all.
I understand the point of the pseudonym, and as I said, I can't unknow that this was written by J. K. Rowling, but it didn't feel like it was written by a man -- and if Rowling (the richest/best-sellingest author in the history of books) didn't think that she could sell a mystery without a man's name on the cover, that's a little sad. There was plenty of swearing, and while it read natural as dialogue, it didn't seem of a piece with the slightly formal and old-fashioned expository passages. And one last complaint -- the Latin epigraphs also felt out of place and pompous (as did ending with Strike remembering a long passage from Tennyson). However, I really did like Strike and Robin and would like to see how they work together without her eventual departure hanging over their heads (and without, hopefully, the need for too much more of Strike's backstory). I wouldn't have picked The Cuckoo's Calling up if Rowling's cover hadn't been blown, and I can't say that I loved it, but as I'm on a rather long waiting list for The Silkworm, I'll likely be in the mood for it when it becomes available.
