#CBR10Bingo: Award Winner (LA Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller 2013 and an Anthony Award for Best Audio Book in 2014) Supermodel Lula Landry topples from her third floor balcony and cracks her head open on the snow-covered pavement far below. Strangely, the paparazzi that were surrounding her apartment building earlier in the evening were nowhere to be seen when it happened. After careful investigation, the police rule the death a suicide, although the tabloids have all manner of conspiracy theories, the most popular being that she […]
Revisiting Cormoran and Robin (CBR10Bingo)
The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1) by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling pseudonym), Robert Glenister (narrator)
*Note: This review was completed in 2018 before the author’s views towards our trans siblings began to be widely known. At the time I chose to read this book and review it. My reading experience was what it was and these reviews will remain up, but it should be noted that I find her TERF values abhorrent, which have only become more clear over time, and her doubling down in Summer 2020 has made the decision to walk away from her as a creative force […]
Second time through, the characters make this just as good.
The thing about entirely plot-based books is that they don’t usually make for good re-reads, and I am a TOTAL book re-reader. “Do I want to re-read this someday?” is genuinely a question I ask before I will elevate a book to the four star level. If the answer is no, then there better be some damn fine extenuating circumstances as to why not (for instance a book that’s really good, but so traumatizing and upsetting that you can’t read it more than once). Mysteries sometimes […]
The Cuckoo’s Not a Bird in This One
So I’ve been trying to set loose reading goals every year for specific genres in order to attempt to widen my reading habits. The first time it was romance, and I was wildly successful in reading tons of new authors. Last year I meant it to be fantasy, but that’s spilling over into this year as well. Oops. But this year is mystery. And I’ve started off with a bang! The Cuckoo’s Calling is the first in the Cormoran Strike series. Cormoran Strike is a […]
London Calling
I finally (finally) got around to reading the debut mystery novel of “Robert Galbraith”, now famously a pseudonym adopted by goddess divine J.K. Rowling. The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first entry in the Cormoran Strike series, was engrossing and wonderful, and I’m pretty much an idiot for waiting this long. The book starts with a brief prologue, with police making their way through a horde of journalists to the body of an apparent suicide victim; a famous and beautiful woman who has seemingly jumped from […]
Rowling and mysteries are a perfect fit
3.5 stars. This time of year usually has me craving mysteries and I’d been meaning to get to J.K. Rowling’s pseudonymous series. The Cormoran Strike series written under the name of Robert Galbraith centers on ex-military policeman Strike and his new assistant/secretary, Robin. They’re called on to investigate the mysterious death of ultra famous supermodel, Lula Landry. Her death was officially ruled a suicide by the police months ago, but many of her friends and family just can’t believe she would choose to end her […]