A Confession: Had the book, The Cuckoo?s Calling, not been stamped with a sticker pronouncing it to be JK Rowling?s work, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, I would have abandoned the book much earlier than midway. For someone whose idea of crime fiction is a David Baldacci novel, where action leaps off every sentence and bodies fall every other page, the staid The Cuckoo?s Calling was not quite in the same class.
A fact: Before Rowling?s identity as the book?s author was revealed on July 14 in a newspaper scoop, only 1,500 copies of the printed book had been sold since its release in April 2013, besides another 7,000 copies of the e-book, audiobook and library editions. But after Rowling was publicly acknowledged as the author, the book surged from the 4,709th spot to the first best-selling novel on Amazon. Internet reports claim signed copies of the first edition are now selling for as high as $4,000-$6,000.
Where The Cuckoo?s Calling suffers is not so much in the story, characterisation or even prose, but in the sloppy editing?both on the author?s and the editor?s part. While some may like to call the drag of a book full of ?charming descriptions of London? or ?detailed characterisation?, I would call it tedious and unnecessary.
Things move extremely slow in the book, and by the end of the first quarter, all we know is that there has been a murder and detective Cormoran Strike will investigate. The victim is a supermodel with an unholy past, even unholier habits and friends that perch on opposing sides of the scandalous spectrum. The modelling world is portrayed with its usual stereotypes?drugs, heterosexuals, wild parties and unhinged personalities. Stereotypes exist in other characters as well?movie producers, rockstars, rich men, rich men?s wives and somewhat in the main character?Cormoran Strike?too, who is an out-of-work, ex-military, personal-life-in-a-mess, living-in-penury detective.
The one character who is an absolute pleasure to read about is Robin, Strike?s temporary secretary. She comes as a breath of fresh air not only in Strike?s life, where she organises his office and even personal life, but in the book as well with her childish interest and flair as a detective. Ironically, this is where Rowling curbs her words, and we end up wanting more of Robin in an otherwise long-winded book.
Action picks up too late, towards the end of the book, and the mystery is cracked almost impatiently by the author, who could have done well to have displayed the same impatience earlier on in the book. The culprit is no surprise, and by the time Strike makes the revelation, most readers would have guessed it much earlier.
Rowling, who reportedly wants to continue writing in the genre, using the same characters, would do well to focus on a more terse plot the next time, perhaps taking inspiration from the action-packed Harry Potter series. But then things are not completely black and white. The phenomenon of Harry Potter can never leave Rowling and all her subsequent books will invariably be compared to the iconic series. Her first book after Harry Potter, The Casual Vacancy, received mixed reviews. The BBC had reported that Rowling?s manuscript of The Cuckoo?s Calling, sent to publishers anonymously, was declined by at least one publishing house, before being accepted by Sphere Books. But then, obviously, it is Rowling?s name that has the magic, impelling readers to read the book till the last page.