If you are respectably active on the reading community, it will be no surprise that this "Robert Galbraith" is really the mega-famous writer J.K. Rowling, author of the ultra-mega-famous book series of Harry Potter. Why bother on making up the pseudonym when it was revealed after like two weeks when the first novel of this different series got out, that's a mystery to me! (Yes, another pun intended
).
Evidently the genre, topics and setting of the Cormoran Strike book series is totally different from what you find on Harry Potter, but there are other authors writing different kind of genres and to different target audiences, and still they keep their own established author names.
Anyway, the relevant point here is that "Robert Galbraith" doesn't exist but J.K. Rowling definitely exist and a lot in the literary world.
...writers are a savage breed, Mr. Strike. If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill. If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels. While this still is a fictional detective mystery novel, I think that easily can be one of the most personal books that J.K. Rowling ever written. Due that in the first book of this series, she chose the world of modeling and couture, but in this second novel she is opting to use the world of publishing books as the ambiance for the mystery to solve.
The story is set like eight months later of the previous book, and if you hadn't read it yet, but you just can't wait to read this one, you can do it, since while it's a series, you will get the very basic highlights that you need to know to get into the second book BUT without spoiling the culprit on the first novel. So, you can even read both books in reverse order and you still be able to enjoy and get surprised in both novels.
Now, Cormoran Strike's business is rising up thanks to his success in solving the Lula Landry's case. The lovely Robin is still his assistant (THANK YOU, J.K. ROWLING! I LOVE YOU FOR THAT!) and the good thing is that her role in this book series will be growing and growing. While Robin was my "anchor" on the first novel and the main reason to keep reading and reading the first book, I am truly glad to mention that I still love Robin BUT now I do like a lot the character of Cormoran Strike too and there is no doubt that he is the truly main character of the series. The two of them now are making a wonderful team. Beware villains! Here comes Strike and Robin! (Yes, this is a third pun intended! Please, indulge me!
)
Strike has been quite busy getting a lot of clients meaning that his business of private detective is finally afloat. However, he is kinda dissapointed that many of these cases are basically discovering cheating spouses or crooked politicians, so when he finds in front of him what it seems the chance of helping a helpless old woman to find her husband, he accepts even while the chance of getting a payment out of this seems really unlikely.
There are always loose ends in real life.
I am truly glad to mention that while the first book took like an 80% of writing to boost my interest, in here, it was right from the beginning. In the first book, it was like monotonous interviews basically asking the same questions and re-living the same crime scene on and on and on...zzzh...mmh? Oh, right...
In here, while he still does interviews, each of those are really interesting, asking different stuff, looking for different angles on the case. Also, another good thing was that while in the first book, you get to know irrelevant moments of Strike's personal life, in this second novel, Rowling was able to exploit each personal moment to be totally involved in the case. The story is focused on the case, however there were some scenes mentioning other cases where Strike is working too. Yes, I understand that in real life, detectives work in several cases at the same time but in literature, one doesn't want to lose time reading about irrelevant cases that aren't the main story.
I commented on the first book that it could be better with less pages, and I was glad to see that this second novel has less pages than the first book, making the rhythm of the story more fluent. However, if Rowling can make the third novel (since I do hope the making of a third book in the series) with even less pages. I really think that this book series can be a total blast having novels with 300 pages or less focusing in scenes only about the main case.
Forever encased in the amber of a writer's prose.
I was delighted to know that I was wrong about who the culprit was on this case. I think that any reader of detective novels invested time in the middle of the reading experience trying to deduce who did it. And again, J.K. Rowling surprised me with a great process by Strike joining the clues and exposing the case. And when Strike is explaining it, you say: "Wow! Yes, he's right. All those clues were there!"
Hard to remember these days that there was a time you had to wait for the ink and paper reviews to see your work excoriated. With the invention of the internet, any subliterate cretin can be Michiko Kakutani.
Well, J.K. Rowling, you did it again!!! And even better!!!
Lightning doesn't strike twice.
This second book is a real proof that lightnings can strike twice!
J.K. Rowling brought magic to the hearts of readers with Harry Potter and now she is thrilling them with Cormoran Strike
Definitely this second novel is an enormous improvement from the overall reading experience of the first book, now the book series is on tracks and I can hardly wait for the third novel!
Highly recommended!
P.S.
The whole world's writing novels, but nobody is reading them.
It's not an easy task, but every day I do my best to read a bit of all those novels out there.
Jul 25 2014, 02:28 PM, updated 12y ago
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