The Cuckoo's Calling

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I picked it up mostly just because I was curious what Rowling would do under a pseudonym and without the shackling of Harry Potter.

I think the writing here is terrific. There's a rather large cast of characters that come into the story at different points, and each one of them had a distinct personalities and backgrounds. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Robert Glenister and he does such a great job with voicing the characters that I don't know if I would have loved the characters as much had I just been reading it. I loved hearing all the slightly different London accents and the way he captured the emotional state of all these people.

Giving the main character, Strike, an estranged father who was a famous rock star is a stroke of genius. It makes sense of the way all these rich socialites deal with him and gives him ins to certain situations that he shouldn't be in otherwise. I think there are a few little nice touches like this throughout the book.

I also kind of just love this type of hard-boiled detective story. There isn't really even a lot that happens throughout the actual events of the novel, it's a lot of interrogating and recounting of events, but I found it gripping my attention the entire time.

I was really close to giving this 5 stars, but ultimately the story isn't super unique or daring, even though I think it's quite excellent for what it is. And the central mystery, while things are teased out a bit and there are threads left out there for you to connect before the big reveal, results in a scene that really dumps everything on you at once. I liked it, but I think it could have been handled a bit more gracefully.

I didn't realize there were three more books in this series when I started it, I'm excited to check them out at some point now!