The Silkworm review
Jun. 24th, 2016 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI'm not going to discuss the thing that happened in the UK today, because this is a place to express my fannishness and talk about popculture for me, beyond wondering if Rowling will be able to resist using this period as a setting for one of her Cormoran Strike mysteries, eventually. Anyway, I finished 'The Silkworm' by Robert Galbraith AKA J.K. Rowling last night. I was fairly gripped by the story, so I hope I can get across the third book soon (but I'd like to have it in hardback, as I've done with the frist two so it depends on how quickly I come across a second-hand copy, really.)
A perfect storm of curiosity, exhaustion, sympathy and a tiresome client lead Strike to take the job of finding Leonora Strike's missing husband on. It soon becomes apparent that Owen Quince, a not-great, self-publicising author who had just written a novel with thinly disguised, perverse portraits of the people in his literary life and private life is not where his wife thought he was. But he has a history of going off to stay in hotels for a while, and so Cormoran starts to interview the people who might know where he’s gone this time, getting his hands on a copy of ‘Bombyx Mori’ and not assuming like this reader did that Quince is dead. He is, the police go for the obvious conclusion – the wife did it – which Cormoran simply doesn’t believe. The bizarre and sadistic nature of the killing uncovered demands closer attention, but closer attention to a murderer brings its own dangers.
And Robin is determined to be more than a secretary, but her delightful overgrown baby of a fiance, Matt, doesn't like her working with Cormoran for so little money. Like her, I thought Cormoran was developing a blind spot, but he wasn't.
I absolutely did think that our investigating duo could have looked up Quince’s oeuvre on Wikipedia much sooner than they did - rather sweetly, actual books are brought - and I did pick up on a vital clue in an aside that made me deduce who the killer was much sooner than is normally the case in murder mysteries even if I had to wait a while to learn what the motive was, although there are clues all along, in hindsight. So, it’s maybe not as clever, plotwise, as the first book.
Quince being a novelist leads to Rowling having fun drawing and sending up a literary world where everyone loves to lunch and gossip. There are several digs at self-publishing blog writers, but also pretentious stylists, and the press continues to get it in the neck for not respecting privacy. I had more sympathy for the former than the latter. Emma Watson gets mentioned.
We also get to know more about Cormoran – his attitude towards smug marrieds and children was funny. The toll of his work physically because of his amputated leg and the lack of resources he has add a sympathetic, human touch. Though he does have resources in friends, connections, investigative training and a brilliant memory.
We learn more about Robin too, with unsubtle references to the mystery of why she left university that you’d expect to learn more about. She’s a mix of blind optimism about why Matt and Cormoran don’t get on and shrewdness, though why her mother hasn’t taken her aside and said she doesn’t have to marry Matt because she was grateful to him for being nice years ago, and suborn her own personality, I’m not really sure.
So I enjoyed it a shade less than ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’, but look forward to reading more in the series.
A perfect storm of curiosity, exhaustion, sympathy and a tiresome client lead Strike to take the job of finding Leonora Strike's missing husband on. It soon becomes apparent that Owen Quince, a not-great, self-publicising author who had just written a novel with thinly disguised, perverse portraits of the people in his literary life and private life is not where his wife thought he was. But he has a history of going off to stay in hotels for a while, and so Cormoran starts to interview the people who might know where he’s gone this time, getting his hands on a copy of ‘Bombyx Mori’ and not assuming like this reader did that Quince is dead. He is, the police go for the obvious conclusion – the wife did it – which Cormoran simply doesn’t believe. The bizarre and sadistic nature of the killing uncovered demands closer attention, but closer attention to a murderer brings its own dangers.
And Robin is determined to be more than a secretary, but her delightful overgrown baby of a fiance, Matt, doesn't like her working with Cormoran for so little money. Like her, I thought Cormoran was developing a blind spot, but he wasn't.
I absolutely did think that our investigating duo could have looked up Quince’s oeuvre on Wikipedia much sooner than they did - rather sweetly, actual books are brought - and I did pick up on a vital clue in an aside that made me deduce who the killer was much sooner than is normally the case in murder mysteries even if I had to wait a while to learn what the motive was, although there are clues all along, in hindsight. So, it’s maybe not as clever, plotwise, as the first book.
Quince being a novelist leads to Rowling having fun drawing and sending up a literary world where everyone loves to lunch and gossip. There are several digs at self-publishing blog writers, but also pretentious stylists, and the press continues to get it in the neck for not respecting privacy. I had more sympathy for the former than the latter. Emma Watson gets mentioned.
We also get to know more about Cormoran – his attitude towards smug marrieds and children was funny. The toll of his work physically because of his amputated leg and the lack of resources he has add a sympathetic, human touch. Though he does have resources in friends, connections, investigative training and a brilliant memory.
We learn more about Robin too, with unsubtle references to the mystery of why she left university that you’d expect to learn more about. She’s a mix of blind optimism about why Matt and Cormoran don’t get on and shrewdness, though why her mother hasn’t taken her aside and said she doesn’t have to marry Matt because she was grateful to him for being nice years ago, and suborn her own personality, I’m not really sure.
So I enjoyed it a shade less than ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’, but look forward to reading more in the series.
