The Cuckoo’s Calling

Critics Review

• The Cuckoo’s Calling reminds me why I fell in love with crime fiction in the first place

  Val McDermid

• One of the most unique and compelling detectives I’ve come across in years

  Mark Billingham

• One of the best crime novels I have ever read

  Alex Gray

• Everytime I put this book down, I looked forward to reading more. Galbraith writes at a gentle pace, the pages rich with description and with characters that leap out of them. I loved it. He is a major new talent

  Peter James

• Just once in a while a private detective emerges who captures the public imagination in a flash. And here is one who might well do that . . . There is no sign that this is Galbraith’s first novel, only that he has a delightful touch for evoking London and capturing a new hero. An auspicious debut

  Daily Mail

• In a rare feat, Galbraith combines a complex and compelling sleuth and an equally well-formed and unlikely assistant with a baffling crime in his stellar debut . . . Readers will hope to see a lot more of this memorable sleuthing team

  Publishers Weekly, starred review

• Laden with plenty of twists and distractions, this debut ensures that readers will be puzzled and totally engrossed for quite a spell

  Library Journal

• A scintillating debut novel . . . Galbraith delivers sparkling dialogue and a convincing portrayal of the emptiness of wealth and glamour

  The Times, Saturday Review

• Utterly compelling . . . a team made in heaven and I can’t wait for the next in the series

  Saga Magazine

• The detective and his temp-agency assistant are both full and original characters and their debut case is a good, solid mystery

  Morning Star

• The plot could have come from an Agatha Christie novel and yet The Cuckoo’s Calling is absolutely of today, colourfully written and great fun

  Bookoxygen.com

• Galbraith demonstrates superb flair as a mystery writer

  Birmingham Post

• This debut is instantly absorbing, featuring a detective facing crumbling circumstances with resolve instead of clichéd self-destruction and a lovable sidekick with contagious enthusiasm for detection . . . Kate Atkinson’s fans will appreciate his reliance on deduction and observation along with Galbraith’s skilled storytelling

  Booklist

• The most engaging British detective to emerge so far this year . . . An astonishingly mature debut from Galbraith, it marks the start of a fine crime career

  Daily Mail online

• Rowling is a formidable storyteller . . . the plot is tightly moulded and told

  Mark Lawson, The Guardian

• A sharply contemporary novel full of old-fashioned virtues . . . wonderfully fresh and funny. I hope this is the inauguration of a series that lasts long enough to make Harry Potter look like a flash in the pan

  Jake Kerridge, The Daily Telegraph

• The appeal of The Cuckoo’s Calling doesn’t depend at all on Rowling’s prior status. All credit to her: she has created a really good series here. Strike will be back

  Evening Standard

• Rowling’s descriptions of contemporary London are excellent

  Mail on Sunday

• It should come as no surprise that her first foray into crime fiction is so accomplished . . . a brilliant depiction of London life . . . at heart it’s an engrossing and well-crafted who-dunnit. Unsurprisingly excellent

  Sunday Mirror

• It’s probably best, for the moment, to forget Robert Galbraith’s real identity; this is a very good book in its own right

  Independent

• Her crime debut beguilingly shows that she can renounce magic and yet be magical

  Sunday Times

• An accomplished piece that thoroughly deserves its retrospective success

  Financial Times

• A gripping, finely crafted and atmospheric mystery, and its charismatic hero, ex-solder-turned-private-eye Cormoran Strike, is a brilliant creation

  Sunday Business Post

• Beautifully written with a terrific plot … It’s a terrific read, gripping, original and funny … Please, please give us more of Robert Galbraith and Cormoran Strike

  Daily Express

• The work of a master storyteller . . . This is a sharply contemporary novel full of old-fashioned virtues

  Telegraph

• Robert Galbraith has written a highly entertaining book … Even better, he has introduced an appealing protagonist in Strike, who’s sure to be the star of many sequels to come

  New York Times

• The master is back. In The Cuckoo’s Calling, a detective novel that Rowling published under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, she returns to the strengths that made Harry Potter – the beautiful sense of pacing, the deep but illusionless love for her characters – without sacrificing the expanded range of The Casual Vacancy. In doing so, she’s written one of the books of the year

  Charles Finch, USA Today

• Rowling moves through the polished world of fashion designers and rock stars with the same aplomb as she did when writing about wizards and witches

  Vogue

• Rowling switches genres seamlessly … A gritty, absorbing tale

  Ellen Shapiro, People

• Cleverly plotted … Rowling serves up a sushi platter of red herring, sprinkling clues along the way, before Strike draws a confession out of the killer in a climax straight out of Agatha Christie

  Entertainment Weekly

• One of the great pleasures of The Cuckoo’s Calling, as with most detective stories, is observing the gumshoe’s Aha! moments, without being told what they are … Money and general fabulousness does for The Cuckoo’s Calling what magic did for Harry Potter, creating an extravagant, alien, fascinating world for its characters to explore … The Cuckoo’s Calling is fun

  Slate Magazine

• It’s terrific … A brilliant achievement, mordantly funny and monumentally absorbing … A masterful novel, the kind of big, noisy, busy, beautiful book in which it is so easy and so pleasurable to become enmeshed

  Chicago Tribune

• I wasn’t disappointed. Whether she’s writing about Dementors or detectives, Rowling is a pro

  Daily Beast

• The private eye novel is not dead. It was merely waiting for Robert Galbraith to give it a firm squeeze, goosing it back to bold, new life. Hardboiled crime fans are going to go cuckoo for this one. I haven’t had this much fun with a detective novel in years

  Duane Swierczynski, Shamus and Anthony Award-winning author