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. If the novel were published it would ruin lives – so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him. And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before …

A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, The Silkworm is the second in the highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant Robin Ellacott.

UK trade paperback edition, 154×233mm.

Reviews

“An unputdownable tale of malice and murder in a toxic literary world . . . this almost preposterously compulsive page-turner is irresistible summer reading” (Sunday Times UK)

“Teems with sly humour, witty asides and intelligence … A pleasure to read” (The Times)

“A superb and polished thriller . . . an ingenious whodunit” (Sunday Mirror UK)

“Pacy, unputdownable . . . I can't wait for the next one” (Daily Express UK)

“A great detective novel: sharp, immensely readable, warm-hearted but cool-headed … populated with dozens of memorable characters” (USA Today)

“Galbraith brings flair and wit to [his] reflections on the state of contemporary publishing … [He] takes the existing strengths of the genre and uses them as the building blocks for [his] own considerable storytelling gift, crafting books crammed with memorable characters that make irresistible reading … There are aspects of the traditional English crime novel reaching right back to the golden age of Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Marsh … The Cuckoo's Calling was a calling card for a series that has legs” (Val McDermid, Guardian)

“An intelligent and captivating drama driven by fascinatingly real characters. This is storytelling at its very best” (Heat)

“The Silkworm is a deeply satisfying work of crime fiction, more complex and darker than its predecessor” (The Australian)

“A properly addictive whodunit. And in the unlikely pairing of ungainly Strike and his clever young assistant, Galbraith has created an investigative duo with spark and empathy” (Financial Times)

Author Biography

Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, The Casual Vacancy and the first Cormoran Strike novel, The Cuckoo's Calling.