The Last Word

Cormoran P.I. J.K. Rowling, ranked in the top ten bestselling assigned randomly to the office, Robin authors of all time, has moved Ellacott, far away from her Harry shows up Potter days. Her renown there for a from penning her beloved week’s work, children’s fantasy series of only to be seven books, plus other books confronted related to the series, have with Strike’s exmade Harry Potter and his fiancée running world of witches, wizards, out the door and and fantastic beasts a global Strike himself, pop culture touchstone. who nearly knocks her The Casual Vacancy, her down the stairs by accident. first murder mystery, was A sympathetic, personable, a stand-alone novel with and organized colleague, a nasty tone about nasty she complements Strike’s people. After this freshman gruff and imposing presence, effort, which had a mixed bringing insights to the table reception, Rowling decided as he calls in favors from to create the Cormoran London’s Metropolitan Police Strike series, a succession of while interviewing suspects blunt, psychological murder and witnesses that Strike mysteries based around two would intimidate. private detectives, Cormoran As the novels progress, Strike and Robin Ellacott. Rowling develops the P.I.s’

Deciding to write under the back stories. In the first novel, pen name Robert Galbraith, The Cuckoo’s Calling, Strike Rowling wanted the series has just broken up with his to sink or swim on its own gorgeous, wickedly funny merits, while signaling that fiancée, with whom he has these thrillers were set in a had a tumultuous relationship different universe than her for sixteen years. The goal of blockbuster children’s novels. Charlotte Campbell, mentally She was outed as the author, unstable and fond of drama, however, and the first novel is to escape responsibility. An subsequently shot up the upper-class woman with a bestseller list after its middling broken home life and network initial sales. The Cuckoo’s of aristocratic friends, she Calling, The Silkworm, Career chose Strike in college to rebel of Evil, Lethal White, and against her upbringing and very recently, Troubled Blood, fell in love with him. have profiled a provocative, After his leg is blown off in evolving partnership between Afghanistan, the prickly, fastCormoran and Robin, along food–loving Strike decides with their private lives and to opt out of the military hunts for the criminals who and set up his own shop as lurk among their diverse a private investigator. Strike, victims. the illegitimate son of super-

Cormoran Strike, a former groupie Leda Strike and rock military policeman who wears star Jonny Rokeby, has grown a prosthesis after his leg was up moving constantly. His blown off in Afghanistan, pot-smoking mother drifts starts a struggling detective from ratty flat to ratty flat, agency. A secretarial temp and musician boyfriend to musician boyfriend, with her children, Strike and his conventional half-sister, Lucy. Strike’s only source of stability is his part-time childhood in Cornwall, where he has good memories and old friends, with his Uncle Ted and Aunt Joan. Dropping out of Oxford after his mother died of a heroin overdose, he gravitates towards the military police. As an MP, he learns how to organize his life and develop a methodology as he investigates crimes.

When Strike hires Robin permanently as a secretary and then a private investigator, she begins fulfilling a lifetime dream of working in criminal justice. Born in a close-knit middle-class family in Yorkshire, she had started off as a psychology major at university. After suffering trauma, she too drops out. A born investigator, she does

what she can to stay with Strike, despite the low pay and potential danger. Her new fiancé and longtime accountant boyfriend, Matthew Cunliffe, finds her new profession dangerous and wants her to make more money. As they plan their wedding, Robin starts coming into her own, developing her professional relationship with

Strike and making her mark by helping to solve cases and bring in customers.

Rowling has written five