It soared to the top of the fiction charts but attracted mixed reviews.Ī clue to why Rowling decided to adopt a pseudonym for The Cuckoo's Calling might be gleaned from the reception to her first post-Potter novel. In the event Rowling's first published book for adults was The Casual Vacancy, based on a parish council dispute in the parochial town of Pagford, which was released to much hype in October last year. When it was announced that the editor of her first book for adults would be David Shelley, who counts McDermid and Billingham among his authors and comes from a background steeped in crime and thriller writing, the Guardian books writer Alison Flood was so sure it would be a crime novel that she wrote: 'Bet you a Harry Potter proof that I'm right.' It had long been suspected that Rowling was working on a crime novel. The book, about a war veteran turned private investigator called Cormoran Strike, and described by the publisher as based on Galbraith's 'own experiences and those of his military colleagues', has sold 1,500 copies in hardback since it was released in April.Īlso showering praise on the book was another crime writer, Mark Billingham, who described Strike as 'one of the most compelling detectives I've come across in years'.

'It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.' 'I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience,' she said. Rowling expressed regret that she had been found out. However, it appears that for some it was a bit too accomplished for a debut novel, which led the Sunday Times to investigate and reveal the writer's true identity as Britain's best-selling author of all time. Writing in the Guardian last week, Val McDermid, the acknowledged queen of the pyschological thriller, described the book as embracing 'the best of traditional mystery fiction, private-eye pace and the kind of writing that reminds me why I love this genre'.

The casual vacancy kindle