Book Review
The Cuckoo’s Calling
J.K Rowling’s Suicide or Murder?
“How easy it was to capitalize on a person’s own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life.”
A celebrity supermodel named Lula Landry fell to death from her apartment building. The police declare her death to be a suicide, with no solid evidence backing up the murder theory. After several months, Lula’s brother John Bristow shows up to a private detective, Cormoran Strike, to investigate the suicide case, as he strongly believes otherwise. Because of personal and financial issues going out of hand, Strike accepts and investigates the case with his newly appointed assistant, Robin. Strike embarks on a journey by peeling the layers of multimillionaire’s lives to learn the truth, which is no longer what he had expected.
Author
J.K Rowling writes this murder mystery under a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. One could say she had almost pulled this one-off. Cuckoo’s Calling does not seem to be the work of a novice murder mystery writer. Apart from certain drags in the story, this book occupies the reader’s mind easily.
Characters
There are two major characters in the story, Cormoran Strike & Robin. The author took a lot of time to set up the story and characters.
Strike possesses a character of a listener which is handy for a detective. His wicked sarcasm and brutal honesty discomforts people. Robin is an energetic girl showing a lot of intent on a job being a detective. She acts with no instructions, doesn’t need any manual, and improvises to the situation remarkably. She played the role of a perfect sidekick. There was a contrast between the lives of Strike and Robin, as she was extremely happy with her recent engagement and the new job, whereas Strike was weak and exhausted, struggling to forget his ex-girlfriend, Charlotte. Though he is fragile and bored, he possesses a kind heart which he reveals in the second half of the book. He becomes an attractive character who rips the pride and dominance of egoistic people.
Story
The story was insanely slow, taking time to establish every detail, with phrases from other languages. Strike investigates every possibility, eliminates the others, but he never reveals what he runs inside his head. There was no attempt taken to clarify readers about the protagonist's deductions, not until the climax. All the characters linked to the case had something to hide from the world which added thrill to the read. At halfway, the story is wide open and suspicions fall on everyone.
Ending
The climax was a bit of a letdown. All the puzzle pieces fall into their place in the final few pages. The final reveal could be a bit of surprise, but still predictable. The author has done a marvelous job by not revealing the motive behind the crime and there were sufficient red herrings to preserve the tension. Strike’s deductive skills seem impressive on paper, but the execution part was a little far-fetched. His arrival of conclusion from certain clues seems unbelievable. Mere guessing from the absurd facts did not add any weight to the story.
The major drawback in the story was lack of brain work and little scheming, but a huge rely on luck and coincidence. Wit and smartness were just complementary. It looked like the entire universe has conspired the antagonist to escape from the committed murder albeit being called a mastermind criminal.
On the positive side, the psychological element behind the crime was convincing. If not, the book could have been an average crime thriller.
Verdict
A decent murder mystery with the climax being a letdown.
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