The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling)
Genre: Crime Fiction
Format: Audiobook
Bought at Barnes & Noble
Summary:
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he 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, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel is published, it will ruin lives - so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.
And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before....
Review:
Sound interesting? It is. I got this audiobook for my 13 hour car ride to the beach a couple of months ago. This took me there and nearly back since it is a 17.5 hour audiobook, and I need to rewind a lot since I am driving.
This is the second book in the Cormoran Strike series. I have not read/listened to the first and this is the type of series where you really don’t need to read the books in order (since they aren’t really related just briefly mentioned). It was written by JK Rowling under a pen name and I did not realize it was her before listening. I am glad I didn’t know beforehand, but you wouldn’t be able to tell it was her writing from the audiobook.
This audio book had me hooked from the very beginning. It is written very well and I was surprised when I learned it was written by JK Rowling since it is very different from her Harry Potter series - which I am thankful for (I love HP but I’m glad the tone and style are different). When I learned it was JKR I was pleasantly surprised but not overly.
This is not predictable like other crime novels. I didn’t hear very much foreshadowing which gave no hints to the criminal - I like the surprise as it keeps the reader interested. It did not slow down at all - my interest was kept all throughout the book. I enjoyed listening to the book within the book as the murdered man was a writer.
The reader did a very good job with all of the voices. I did not ‘get pulled back to reality’ with some of his female voices as some male readers tend to do. The voices were not overplayed and the author has a very nice reading tone (not a smooth as Morgan Freeman but similar with a British accent). The best job he did was with one of the female characters who had the voice of a smoker. I kept picturing this woman as Professor McGonagall - though I can’t put my finger on why right now.
Suggested For:
Those who like Crime Fiction and Mystery. Those interested in reading other JKR novels that are very different from the HP series.
Similar Books:
Obviously the other Cormoran Strike books.
Purely recommending the Harry Potter series because JKR is the author.
If you have never read an Agatha Christie novel, you need to get on it right now especially if you liked the plot twists in the novel. DO IT. Start with And Then There Were None (AKA Ten Little Indians)
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