A Muggle Murder

Pages: 449

Now that JK Rowling has been unmasked as the author of The Cuckoo’s Calling,finding her imprint in the mystery has become an exercise in detection itself. An all-Muggles mystery,far removed from the world of magic and sorcerers,its running thread of identity and many references to the paparazzi’s relentless stalking of celebrities reflects some of Rowling’s own concerns.

Set in contemporary London,it moves away from the provincial setting of her first novel for adults,The Casual Vacancy. But The Cuckoo’s Calling didn’t need the Rowling name to keep you interested. Robert Galbraith would have done just as well,except he would not have sold as many copies.

The book plunges straight into the heart of the mystery. One snowy night,Lula Landry or Cuckoo to friends,a supermodel,falls to her death from her London balcony. “The story forced news of politics,wars and disasters aside,and…within hours,the few known facts had spread like virus to millions: the public row with the famous boyfriend,the journey home alone,the overhead screaming and the final,fatal fall…”

The police verdict is suicide but Lula’s brother John Bristow thinks otherwise. Enter Cormoran Strike,a war veteran who has lost half a leg in Afghanistan,a scruffy towering man with “the high bulging forehead,broad nose and thick brows of a young Beethoven who had taken to boxing”,who,in the tradition of many recent detectives,is low on both cash and love.

Proving the suicide a murder takes time and the next 400-odd pages meander through buzzy pubs,trendy boutiques and quiet Mayfair streets. As Strike pieces together the puzzle,a portrait of Lula emerges,a young girl of mixed race adopted by a white family,who was growing up with her adoptive brother John and a cloying mother,and looking to trace her black roots.

Like Lula,Strike is a bit of an outsider too. Son of a famous rock musician and a super-groupie,his father’s name evokes interest wherever he goes but that’s a world he never belonged to. In his quest for the truth,Strike is ably helped by Robin,Watson to his Holmes,only sharper,a temp who comes to work for him for a week but who becomes permanent by the end of the book.

The search for the killer takes Strike through Lula’s social network: her much-dissed boyfriend,her model friends and a surprising friendship with a girl she met at a treatment facility. As Strike delves deeper,nothing is what it seems. Who was using whom? Who stood the most to gain most from Lula’s death? The questions gain urgency as the danger mounts but there is little violence. The investigation proceeds at a leisurely pace. As Robin’s fiance says,“And you’re sure he is a detective,are you? Because anyone can do that. Anyone can Google people”. But Cormoran Strike does more than that. His investigation is part legwork,part exercising the grey cells — and,of course,a bit of Googling. Looking forward to his next case.