2013, 1st edition; Little, Brown and Company publishers, New York, London; hardbound with ebony boards and silver lettering on spine; very good condition, appears unread; dust jacket very good also.
Description -
The Cuckoo's Calling is a 2013 crime fiction novel by J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It is the first novel in the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels and was followed by The Silkworm in 2014 and Career of Evil in 2015.
Plot -
Disabled Afghan War veteran and struggling private investigator Cormoran Strike is approached by prospective client John Bristow, whose brother Charlie was one of Strike's childhood schoolmates. Bristow and Charlie were both adopted, as was Bristow’s sister, supermodel Lula Landry, adopted after Charlie’s young death. Bristow feels that Lula did not jump to her death three months earlier and wants Strike to investigate further. Although initially unconvinced, Strike takes on the case due to his need for money.
As the investigation commences, Strike meets Robin Ellacott, who has been assigned by a temp agency to act as his secretary, and hires her for one week despite his lack of funds. Robin, who has just become engaged to her longtime boyfriend Matthew, turns out to be much more competent than Strike expected, prompting him to extend her stay.
The two set about interviewing Lula's friends and family members as well as her personal driver, the doorman at her Mayfair flat and a fashion designer who affectionately referred to her as "Cuckoo". With each recollection of Lula, Strike gradually suspects the circumstances of her death are murkier than he initially imagined. His suspicions are confirmed after interviewing Lula's downstairs neighbor Tansy Bestigui, who told police that she heard Lula fighting with a man shortly before her death.
Strike, who originally dismissed Tansy's statement because it was clear she could not have heard the fight through her flat's triple glazed windows, concludes that part of her story was true. While she did hear an argument and see Lula fall to her death, Tansy did not inform the police that she was standing outside when the fight occurred. Tansy reveals she had been kicked out by her husband following a heated argument over her cocaine use and, after telling him that she saw, had been threatened into changing her story.
Shortly afterward, Lula's friend Rochelle is found dead...