The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith
The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith
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The Silkworm

Bestseller

Author: Robert Galbraith

Narrator: Robert Glenister

Unabridged: 17 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/19/2014

Synopsis

Private investigator Cormoran Strike must track down a missing writer -- and a sinister killer bent on destruction -- in this "wonderfully entertaining" mystery (Harlan Coben, New York Times Book Review) that inspired the acclaimed HBO Max series C.B. Strike.
  When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband 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, he discovers that Quine's disappearance is no coincidence. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published, it would ruin lives -- meaning that almost everyone in his life would have motives to silence him. When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, Strike must race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before . . . A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, The Silkworm is the second in J. K. Rowling's highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant, Robin Ellacott.

About Robert Galbraith

As a fantasy author, (as we all know), J.K. Rowling had larger than life success with the Harry Potter series. When she decided to fulfill her dream of writing a "whodunit" (as she called it), she decided to use a male pseudonym, thus the author, Robert Galbraith was created. The name was born from her hero, Robert F. Kennedy, and a childhood favorite name of Ella Galbraith. She does not know why that name was so fascinating, but it always was. So, Robert Galbraith it was.

Galbraith wanted to go back to the beginning of a writing career, and wanted to receive honest, non-hyped feedback on her new genre. Now, she still writes as Robert to keep the distinction from her other writing.

Her ideas of writing a detective novel correlated with her work on Harry Potter and The Casual Vacancy. There should be clear rules, the detective should always explain the required information for the reader, but always be ahead of the game. Her detective had a military background which gave Galbraith many excuses to add intrigue to the novel, for example, no appearances in public or no photographs.

Galbraith says that she starts with a tiny idea of her character's personality, but ends up knowing much more about the character than ever ends up in the novel. She actually uses color-coded spreadsheets to keep track of where she is going at any given time. It was the same for the Harry Potter series. Her level of detailed planning is well documented for the Harry Potter novels. Galbraith is very disciplined with her schedule of writing, with a set working day.

One interesting, final point........she does not write the title page until the book is finished.

Reviews

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Quotes

"Strike shares a trait with many great fictional detectives: He is darn good company...The Silkworm is a very well-written, wonderfully entertaining take on the traditional British crime novel...Robert Galbraith may proudly join the ranks of English, Scottish and Irish crime writers such as Tana French, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, John Connolly, Kate Atkinson and Peter Robinson."—Harlan Coben, The New York Times Book Review

"Cormoran Strike is back, and so is his resourceful sidekick, Robin Ellacott, a gumshoe team that's on its way to becoming as celebrated for its mystery-solving skills as Nick and Nora Charles of "Thin Man" fame, and Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander (a.k.a. the girl with the dragon tattoo)."—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"The plot zings along...Swift and satisfying"—Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times

"'The last line of The Silkworm, which will lift the hearts of readers who have come to love its deeply sympathetic characters, offers the prospect of more of that joy both for her and for us."—Charles Finch, USA Today (3.5/4 stars)

"A compulsively entertaining yarn."—Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly

"Robert Galbraith... has written a second absorbing whodunit starring detective Corcmoran Strike to follow last year's stealth hit, The Cuckoo's Calling.... Astutely observed, well-paced... The Silkworm thoroughly engages as a crime novel."—Sue Corbett, People

The Silkworm is fast-paced and entertaining... Strike is heroic without intending to be and has a great back story. He's the illegitimate son of a rock star whose half-siblings grew up in privilege... And he's brooding, but not annoyingly so. Strike has all kinds of potential. It'd be a crime not to keep up with him."—Sherryl Connelly, Daily News

"Why is "likable" the first word that comes to mind upon finishing The Silkworm? Surely, that has something to do with Rowling's palpable pleasure in her newly chosen genre (the jig may be up with her Robert Galbraith pseudonym, but the bloom is still on her homicidal rose) and even more to do with her detective hero, who, at the risk of offending, is the second husband of every author's dreams."—Louis Bayard, The Washington Post

"The story is enthralling, not only for its twists and turns, but for the fun of the teamwork.... [It's] a cast of characters who you'll want to meet again and again."—Ashley Ross, Time

"[The Silkworm is a] swift-paced, suspenseful mystery....Robert Galbraith has announced himself a fresh voice in mystery fiction: part hard-boiled, part satiric, part poignant, and part romantic."—Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

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