characters that aren&#8217;t exactly likeable
Is this character credible?
&#8216;The Cuckoo&#8217;s Calling&#8217; by Robert Galbraith &#8211; a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling, is the first in the mystery series &#8216;Cormoran Strike&#8217;, titled after the main character.We meet Cormoran Strike when he&#8217;s down on his luck, so much so that he&#8217;s taken to living in his office &#8211; a long fall for the man who used to be in the army. Then, luckily, John Bristow walks into Strike&#8217;s office with a job for him &#8211; prove the police wrong by discovering his sister&#8217;s killer. The case was ruled as a suicide, but Bristow is adamant that couldn&#8217;t be true, and he hires Strike to prove it.Armed with a new assistant and finally with a little money to his name, Strike sets out to do his job. The fact he&#8217;s investigating a supermodel means he&#8217;s soon pulled into the lives of those rich and famous, but even Strike&#8217;s steady head and nerves aren&#8217;t quite ready to deal with what is soon thrown at him.I honestly kept forgetting that the author is our favourite Rowling as I read this &#8211; I even thought at one stage that I needed to look up the author to see if he had written anything else. The writing may not be out of this world, but it was a comforting loose, enjoyable read, and I love books that capture the feel and echo of London. Rowling manages to write characters that aren&#8217;t exactly likeable, yet she still manages to make them likeable, if that makes any sense at all. They&#8217;re real and flawed but entirely realistic.The book itself is very much grounded in reality. While not teeming with original ideas, it is unmistakably a very well written and clever detective novel and I look forward to more, though it&#8217;s a pity Rowling was &#8216;outed&#8217; as the author against her wishes as it sort of skews perceptions of the book when the author is such an acclaimed one.Perhaps I&#8217;ve been watching too much Luther, but if they ever develop this series for the screen, please let Idris Elba play Strike.Our protagonist is quick-minded and easily likeable and is what makes the whole book so very entertaining as he puts the puzzle together bit by bit.It might be a little typical story-wise but that&#8217;s by no means a bad thing. In fact, it&#8217;s exactly what the book is supposed to be, and it&#8217;s very good at what it sets out to do. Rowling makes a tired story somehow refreshing and above all else, very, very entertaining. 