It has been a while since I've last updated, and I would like to apologise. A move to a new place isn't easy and it took a while to settle down. But change is scary and new jobs carry with them a kind of uncertainty that takes time to figure out, after the initial euphoria of graduating and landing a job settles down. In short, I felt a bit similar to Robin, a lead character in Robert Galbraith's first mystery novel, The Cuckoo Calling.
When Robin goes to work temporarily for a private detective, she discovers many things, about the detective, the work they do, and her own abilities. Her boss, Cormoran Strike, was an ex-army intelligence officer , a beefy man who was trying to establish himself as a detective.
So when the brother of an old friend of Cormoran Strike's turns up, requesting an investigation into the alleged suicide of his celebrity sister, Strike and Robin are thrown into the mayhem of the celebrity world, of inheritance, family and motive, to try and solve the crime at hand when few cooperate and everyone has something to hide.
We are introduced to a detective with no abnormal observation powers or Sherlock Holmes-ian attitude, but a sharp man working hard at his job. He has hangups and stories, and none of the mysterious aura. As the story progresses, we know more of the person solving it. Robin is no Dr Watson, but Della Street of Perry Mason's make, and with a story of her own . They are real rounded characters who enrich the story from a human angle. Who is the murdered girl, really? And why did things turn out the way they did?
Galbraith's writing is mature, for a first time writer, too mature perhaps. The descriptions are lucid, imagery like a painting , of industrial , grey, multicultural and many-faceted London. The city is written about with a lot of love. The people woven into the story are flesh and blood as well, we may encounter them at some point, and they are each specimens on their own. A lot of research seems to have gone into it, and if I dare say, one of the few murder mysteries lovingly written.
It is a refreshing departure from the caper stories that come out these days. I was left wondering not only about the story, but also of the choices and fates of the lead characters themselves. Things follow to a logical conclusion, but not in the deductive manner of Poirot, or Holmes, We can't really solve the mystery alongside Strike, but have to wait for the literature to yield the answer.
A Dickensian detective story overall. And it left me with the hope that perhaps, good literature isn't dead after all.
When Robin goes to work temporarily for a private detective, she discovers many things, about the detective, the work they do, and her own abilities. Her boss, Cormoran Strike, was an ex-army intelligence officer , a beefy man who was trying to establish himself as a detective.
So when the brother of an old friend of Cormoran Strike's turns up, requesting an investigation into the alleged suicide of his celebrity sister, Strike and Robin are thrown into the mayhem of the celebrity world, of inheritance, family and motive, to try and solve the crime at hand when few cooperate and everyone has something to hide.
We are introduced to a detective with no abnormal observation powers or Sherlock Holmes-ian attitude, but a sharp man working hard at his job. He has hangups and stories, and none of the mysterious aura. As the story progresses, we know more of the person solving it. Robin is no Dr Watson, but Della Street of Perry Mason's make, and with a story of her own . They are real rounded characters who enrich the story from a human angle. Who is the murdered girl, really? And why did things turn out the way they did?
Galbraith's writing is mature, for a first time writer, too mature perhaps. The descriptions are lucid, imagery like a painting , of industrial , grey, multicultural and many-faceted London. The city is written about with a lot of love. The people woven into the story are flesh and blood as well, we may encounter them at some point, and they are each specimens on their own. A lot of research seems to have gone into it, and if I dare say, one of the few murder mysteries lovingly written.
It is a refreshing departure from the caper stories that come out these days. I was left wondering not only about the story, but also of the choices and fates of the lead characters themselves. Things follow to a logical conclusion, but not in the deductive manner of Poirot, or Holmes, We can't really solve the mystery alongside Strike, but have to wait for the literature to yield the answer.
A Dickensian detective story overall. And it left me with the hope that perhaps, good literature isn't dead after all.
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