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Cormoran Strike #1-3
The Cuckoo's Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil
Cormoran Strike Series Robert Galbraith Collection 3 Books Bundle includes titles in this collection:
The Cuckoo's Calling
When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case. Strike is a war veteran - wounded both physically and psychologically - and his life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger . . .
The Silkworm
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 realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows.
Career of Evil
When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman's severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible - and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.
The Cuckoo's Calling
When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case. Strike is a war veteran - wounded both physically and psychologically - and his life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger . . .
The Silkworm
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 realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows.
Career of Evil
When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman's severed leg. Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible - and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.
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Published January 1, 1784
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About the author
Robert Galbraith
34 books32.9k followersThis is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series and The Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults.
NOTE: There is more than one author with this name on Goodreads.
Rowling was born to Anne Rowling (née Volant) and Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.
Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.
NOTE: There is more than one author with this name on Goodreads.
Rowling was born to Anne Rowling (née Volant) and Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.
Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.
Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
November 19, 2018
I would recommend this series to anyone who likes mysteries and even to someone who doesn't. It has a very private eye feel and the story really draws you in. Anyone who has listen to 3bookgirl podcast knows I am not a usual mystery reader so a 5 star rating is a golden thing.
February 13, 2018
Love the characters and ease of reading. Unsure how this is possible when I struggled to get through the Harry Potter series. Stretched the third book out for as long as I could just to stay with the characters. Hopeful for a fourth book!
January 11, 2019
Summary: This is JK Rowling’s contemporary crime series, featuring private detectives Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. He’s a rough-edged former MP[1] who lost a leg in Afghanistan, she’s an office temp who’s long harbored a secret dream of being an investigator. Together they fight crime, and support each other through various personal crises with friendship and mutual respect. Through all three books, there is a running thread of the toxic effects of fame, both on the famous and on those in their orbit. I don’t know if this is deliberate, or just indicative of what Rowling considers a compelling motivator of murderous intent. (It is something I expect she probably has some direct experience with. Toxic effects of fame, I mean, not murder.) Either way, it provides a unifying theme for the series.
That being said, the heart and soul of these books is not the crime; it’s the characters and their mutually supportive relationship. While Cormoran and Robin are quite different on the surface, they have a lot in common. They are both highly observant and intelligent. They both have had shitty long-term romantic relationships (in the first book, Strike has just left his emotionally abusive partner of 16 years; Robin is still with her douche-y fiance in Book 3). Moreover, both their lives have been shaped by trauma (and both of them deny it), and they both motivated by a passion for justice and for uncovering the truth.
Thoughts: These books are great. They’re about as far from Harry Potter as you can get, in terms of subject matter (thus the pseudonym). The murders are all pretty gruesome, so they’re not for everyone, but I recommend them to anyone who likes detective fiction of the hard-boiled or procedural varieties, and who also likes good character drama. Both Strike and Robin are well-drawn, complex characters in their own right. One of the pleasures of reading these books is seeing Robin’s development from an office temp with ambitions into a skilled investigator. Somewhat less pleasurable (but still on the uplifting side) is watching her defy and overcome her fiance’s attempts to undermine her confidence. He’s not abusive like Strike’s ex, but he’s the type of insecure man who builds himself up by subtly knocking other people down. Hopefully she’ll dump him for good, one of these books. As for Strike, he struggles with the demons of an unstable childhood and an abusive relationship that he doesn’t even recognize as such. Which sounds like a well-trodden and tiresome path until I tell you that all that shit didn’t make him into an angsty temperamental brooder. Rather, he’s well aware of the ways his fucked-up past can influence his thinking in bad ways, and makes a conscious effort to prevent it from doing so. His past, along with his disability, creates a sense of vulnerability about the character, which makes him far more interesting than the standard-issue gruff detective he could have been in a lesser writer’s hands. And what’s best is that the relationship between the two principals is one of earned mutual support and respect, with a minimum of macho bullshit from Strike, and a minimum of damselry on her part.
One thing to note: Whether or not you like Harry Potter, will have little to no bearing on whether you’ll like these books. They are very different, written for a completely different audience.
[1] MP=Military Police, not Member of Parliament.
Escapist Rating: 4/4
Recommended for: People who like detective fiction with a strong character element, people who like intricate murder mysteries
Dis-Recommended for: People who can't stand depictions of gruesome murder or violence against women
That being said, the heart and soul of these books is not the crime; it’s the characters and their mutually supportive relationship. While Cormoran and Robin are quite different on the surface, they have a lot in common. They are both highly observant and intelligent. They both have had shitty long-term romantic relationships (in the first book, Strike has just left his emotionally abusive partner of 16 years; Robin is still with her douche-y fiance in Book 3). Moreover, both their lives have been shaped by trauma (and both of them deny it), and they both motivated by a passion for justice and for uncovering the truth.
Thoughts: These books are great. They’re about as far from Harry Potter as you can get, in terms of subject matter (thus the pseudonym). The murders are all pretty gruesome, so they’re not for everyone, but I recommend them to anyone who likes detective fiction of the hard-boiled or procedural varieties, and who also likes good character drama. Both Strike and Robin are well-drawn, complex characters in their own right. One of the pleasures of reading these books is seeing Robin’s development from an office temp with ambitions into a skilled investigator. Somewhat less pleasurable (but still on the uplifting side) is watching her defy and overcome her fiance’s attempts to undermine her confidence. He’s not abusive like Strike’s ex, but he’s the type of insecure man who builds himself up by subtly knocking other people down. Hopefully she’ll dump him for good, one of these books. As for Strike, he struggles with the demons of an unstable childhood and an abusive relationship that he doesn’t even recognize as such. Which sounds like a well-trodden and tiresome path until I tell you that all that shit didn’t make him into an angsty temperamental brooder. Rather, he’s well aware of the ways his fucked-up past can influence his thinking in bad ways, and makes a conscious effort to prevent it from doing so. His past, along with his disability, creates a sense of vulnerability about the character, which makes him far more interesting than the standard-issue gruff detective he could have been in a lesser writer’s hands. And what’s best is that the relationship between the two principals is one of earned mutual support and respect, with a minimum of macho bullshit from Strike, and a minimum of damselry on her part.
One thing to note: Whether or not you like Harry Potter, will have little to no bearing on whether you’ll like these books. They are very different, written for a completely different audience.
[1] MP=Military Police, not Member of Parliament.
Escapist Rating: 4/4
Recommended for: People who like detective fiction with a strong character element, people who like intricate murder mysteries
Dis-Recommended for: People who can't stand depictions of gruesome murder or violence against women
March 27, 2024
Durch eine Freundin wurde ich auf diese Reihe aufmerksam, da mir brittische Krimis sehr gefallen. Und was soll ich sagen: ich finde den Reihenauftakt MEGA. Ich muss dazu allerdings sagen, dass mir die Bücher viel zu viele Seiten haben und ich mit dem lesen einfach nicht vorankam. Es ist zwar alles wichtig, und alle Details so liebevoll geschrieben, ABER, ich schaue mir solche Krimis lieber an, als das ich sie lese.
Ich fand die Geschichten aber sehr gut, sehr schlüssig, sehr brittisch in der Ausführung und das sind für mich alles Punkte für eine absolute Leseempfehlung. Und wisst ihr was? Es gibt sie als Serie unter Strike und die werde ich mir jetzt reinziehen.
Ich fand die Geschichten aber sehr gut, sehr schlüssig, sehr brittisch in der Ausführung und das sind für mich alles Punkte für eine absolute Leseempfehlung. Und wisst ihr was? Es gibt sie als Serie unter Strike und die werde ich mir jetzt reinziehen.
September 10, 2019
Three is an an average rating; I would give both The Cuckoo's Calling and Career of Evil four stars, but The Silkworm only two. This series is excellent throughout for the emotional complexity it gives to the main characters, but the plot twists of The Silkworm seemed too silly to be believable. The fourth book in the series, Lethal White, incidentally, I would give five stars.
December 26, 2018
This lady, is 100% amazing. To be able to write different genres so well. I'm blown away. These books are well. Bloody. ANd some chapters i will truly never read again. Nightmares forever. But SO GOOD.
April 6, 2021
WAW! Thank you J.K. Rowling... Reading this book was a great pleasure ... Amazing book! Amazing story! Even though I have read a spoiler by a mistake about Cuckoo's calling, the end surprised me :)
June 25, 2024
I was really drawn in by the first book, Cuckoo’s Calling. Cormoran Strike is an interesting, complicated character and story twists hold my attention. The Silkworm, second book, was way too gruesome for me, I had to skim. However the characters kept me engaged and reading.
July 4, 2018
Best one in the series so far!
September 20, 2018
My favorite series! Can't wait to read Lethal White which just came out.
November 20, 2018
I enjoyed the characters and their relationships to each other.
September 26, 2019
Career of evil is best of 3. Found 1st and 2nd good but too long for story. Would rate career of evil 4.5
December 2, 2019
Great mystery read! Lots of dialogue so it goes fast, even if the book is long!
April 7, 2020
Robert Galbraith is a master suspense writer, just love this series...hoping for a new one soon.
July 3, 2020
This was a good book and I'm not sure why I waited so long to read it. It's suspenseful and fun to try to figure out the "whodunit".
January 1, 2021
Really enjoyed this book
January 5, 2022
Very fun and enjoyable
January 15, 2022
What a great character Strike is. Look forward to seeing how the follow-up turns out. Should see more of the other characters.
September 21, 2022
excellent read
April 4, 2023
The character development and storytelling are excellent, earning this book a 4.5-star rating from me if I could give it!
May 13, 2024
Good reads but very, very long and drawn out at times. Can only read them after a couple of shorter more page turner books go in between.
July 10, 2024
Top Tier Reading For Teenager And Young Adult
January 21, 2025
Very engaging storyline, well narrated.. Enjoyed it
October 12, 2025
What a great work!
January 25, 2026
WOW! J.K.Rowling. Amazing. Crime series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike. Enjoyable read.
March 16, 2025
I am rereading this series. Honestly, I can't remember if I've read them all or if I only watched the C.B. Strike shows on BBC. I enjoyed the show and did enjoy the Cuckoos Calling. I'm reading the second one now. They are enjoyable, certainly my genre of reading, but not earth shattering. I will say her writing is very descriptive. I can picture every character, every street.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews