Look who’s calling!

We were in a book shop (Foyle’s to be precise) when I saw this book saying ‘Now a major BBC drama’ in its cover and I was like ‘What the what???’ I googled it and lo behold, there is a BBC series coming up for the Cormoran Strike series. If you notice the comments in that trailer, one of them reads “That feeling when character’s appearance doesn’t correlate with an appearance that you have in your mind after reading the book.” that is exactly what I felt when I saw it. I thought Strike was a bit older. It has been a while since I read those books, so I have forgotten about the storylines but I remember what the character was like and it definitely doesn’t match this actor from what I can see from the trailer. Hopefully, it will be OK when we actually see it. I hope so. Looking forward to this. Mr George Gently is making an appearance in this series by the looks of this trailer. When are they going to show the 2nd episode of the latest series btw?

Cormoron strikes again

Ever since I registered for the 30 day free trial of Kindle Unlimited, I am on a reading spree. I can almost star in the advertisement ‘We are the readers‘ 😛 with me and my new Kindle paperwhite! But before going there, let me tell you about the latest adventure of our recent favorite detective Mr Cormoron Strike. ‘The Career or Evil‘, part 3 of the Strike Series by Robert Galbraith.

Finally, in this series, we get a lot of back story of our favorite assistant Ms Robin. And she plays a very active role in this book. Don’t worry, no spoiler alerts here. I am gonna try and keep it as clean as possible. Their on and off chemistry gets a little frustrating in between…its like, they aren’t sure whether to go ahead with their liking for each other or not. They get close and they go apart…It happens quite a lot in this than the other two books. And I did feel that this felt a bit longer than the other two. Well, with those two main complaints out of my way, let me go with the nice ones.

We get a glimpse of the world that was once a part of Cormoron. His past, his pain, and well, his enemies too. He is no big hero, getting into fist fights and jumping over the roofs and all. He is normal in lot of ways, screwing up stuff, missing deadlines, missing the clues lying right before his eyes, not giving enough credit to our Ms Robin. That makes him more real. More likable. The ending was a cliff hanger and a little bit too dramatic but at least we are left with ‘WTH just happened’ kind of feeling 🙂 , which is good by the way.

There are one too many villains in this story when compared to the other ones. But it was very interesting in a lot of ways. It gets more personal , just like our latest James Bond movie, hitting it close to home, almost running Strike to the ground.

It was a good and interesting read and I rated it 4/5 in Goodreads.

The Silkworm – Finely spun

The Silkworm – The sequel or the 2nd in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith: I tried to pre order it in Amazon but for some strange reason it did not allow me to. So on 19th when I saw a post about it being available on Amazon, I instantly went and got it, not bothering that it was a weekday night and I had loads of work pending and had some hard stops coming up. Now I have to blame Robert Galbraith or J.K.Rowling for me skipping my work schedule, because ever since I got it that night, the whole of Friday went in me trying to read it in between work (thank God for the Kindle reader being able to sync between various reading devices) and couldn’t get my head straight to concentrate even a bit at work and I have to bloody try and finish off the work over the weekend. I know its my fault but nice to blame it on the authors 🙂 Finally after pulling an almost all nighter with it, not including the 4 hours of disturbed sleep that I had, I am so glad I got to finish it off. (This seems to be a repeating pattern with me with respect to the mystery novels, so next time you read a mystery novel title you will hear me ranting about doing the same thing …..again).

Nope, I am not going to give any spoiler’s in this post. Trying to be very nice and all today. 

The story picks of where it left in the first part, The Cuckoo’s Calling, Cormoran Strike or Corm trying to make his ends meet with the kind of very predictable cases that come his way after his very famous Lula Landry case. Except in this case, it is all high profile people trying to get some dirt on their partners and getting money out of it. He has bills to pay, a very able assistant, Robin, to hold on and loans to settle : so he goes on with these mundane and repetitive work even though his knee gives him more trouble day by day. When a woman comes with a request to find her husband who has been missing for more than the days he usually goes missing, he goes with his guts on this and rejects a well paying client to take up this case for a change and for some reason he himself couldn’t fathom. Leonora Quine, the wife of Quine, a author and a novelist, whose last book was called Hobart’s Sin often goes off missing when he is in one of his ‘moods’. But he has been gone longer than usual and this worries the wife. She comes to Corm to help her as she has to look after her brain damaged child at home and cannot spend more time explaining things to him. She also says that his agent Elizabeth would know about the place where he usually goes off to, or perhaps he has gone to a writer’s retreat which she overheard recently. Thus starts Corm’s journey to an author’s world filled with books, manuscripts, publishers, criticisms and what not. With his leg getting more troublesome and in between trying to help Robin strike a rapport between her boss (i..e Corm) and her fiance Matthew, and his dread of finding out his ex-fiance’s wedding, along with other cases that he has already agreed to, he initially has some misgivings as to if he did a right thing by accepting this case. But as and when things progress and he starts to get pieces of information where the author’s unpublished book is already leaked out to a lot of people and it insinuates too many big people involved in his life and the publishing world for his own comfort, there is a sense of trepidation that overcomes Corm. And true to his feeling, he finally finds the missing author burned, guts churned out (literally) in a house he co-owns. With that and the strange reactions of Leonora who consistently seeks the support of Corm, inspite of learning about her dead husband, she becomes the natural suspect. But something tells Corm that she isn’t the killer. And to his surprise when he weasels himself the copy of the unpublished book, the scene of the author’s death is depicted to the last detail in the book. Now he has a killer to catch, if only he can ward off that one person who keeps trying to kill him every now and then. OK, I hope that wasn’t a spoiler. There is a boat load of characters who are affected by Quine and who is pissed off at him. Corm and Robin join hands to find out the culprit.

It is not one of those racy thrillers, as I think I already mentioned even in the first book. It is slow in speed. But it takes time to build the characters in a very interesting way, not too long enough to make it boring also. And the pieces of the puzzle are fit in one by one. If you can imagine yourself sitting before the jigsaw puzzle sets and thinking of doing it one by one, then you make a wrong move and then slowly remove it and piece it again to find if it fits. Reading this book gives that feel exactly, at least for me. And its not only about the incident, but it is also about the character’s growth in every book. Robin trying to handle her relationship with her fiance, which is most of the time rocky due to her work. Cormoran trying to get over Charlotte and still struggling with his identity as his father’s son. It gives you a sense of realism and is grounded in many ways. He is missing a leg so he cannot go and do any heroic activities but is proud to ask for help too. He has his own share of faults too. And its about authors. Now I would love to know how another author feels about being how they are depicted in this book. I don’t feel anything different. They are also human, but as one author to another , there could have been something said in between the lines, which I may or may not have understood. Even though the scene of death is gruesome, it doesn’t leave a sour taste in your mouth. I have read some where it does, but well, I am least perturbed by it. But some scenes in the unfinished book do give you some bad scenes to visualize. And that is my problem. Because that is how I read a novel when I am really very interested or if it is very interesting. I automatically picture it and have these voices that speak in my head. I think I have gone long enough about this book. Well, it gives us a different view of the world of authors set against the backdrop of a murder. And having been in London for a week and been gone to some places that they have mentioned, it brought the city back to me. Now I better go and crash and get some rest. If you ask me, it was a very very fine read and very mysterious, even though I thought just like in Harry Potter, the ending did fall a little short for the intensity of the crime. But the journey was amazing.

 

 

 

The Cuckoo’s Calling – Slow Steady And Winning

Just as my friend had mentioned in her post , even I wouldn’t have picked it up this early if not for the pseudonym issue related to this book. And even then I did wait for some more time because I wasn’t very sure how a thriller from her would fare. Because the other book The Casual Vacancy was a drama and I did like  it very much. But I wasn’t sure if I was ready for another drama cum thriller yet. But since I picked this book 4 days before, it has been tough putting it down but I had no choice, thanks to the work and my severe sinus and flu, and I finally, finally completed it today. Yay!!!

Unlike my friend (who is very nice not to give away any spoilers), I am going to go with some spoilers for sure, as usual. So here goes the sign, Spoiler Alert.

It all starts with the death (reported and confirmed as suicide) of a black super model Lucy Landry, who is the adopted daughter of Mrs Bristow and has a living brother John Bristow and a dead brother Charlie. Cormoran Strike, an ex army with a lost leg (an very old friend of Charlie) and recently split from his girlfriend, is a private investigator. Enter recently engaged to Matthew , Robin (having a secret aspiration for being a detective) who comes to Strike for a temp assistant job. The same day John comes to Strike to ask him to investigate the death of his sister, because he senses foul play and wants to find the culprit if any. Strike doesn’t want to take it up but then John plays with his emotions and offers his a sum that Strike cannot refuse (seeing how he is  neck deep in loans and is getting daily calls for paying the interests in due time). Thus starts Strike’s journey into the world of the super model and the events that lead to her suicide / murder.

Do not go looking for something like Harry Potter. That might have been the reason she wanted to start with a pseudonym. If she had to choose a pseudonym to prove that her skills are more than what it was for Harry Potter , then it is a sad state of affairs isn’t. How one success is always compared to all the other works. And just because it is in the thriller category do not go looking for a fast paced action. You will not have fights here, no chasing (you cannot expect Strike to rush with his prosthesis through the city of London) and no grand ending where you hear the symphony at the background. It is as real as it can be. I am not a writer so I wouldn’t know the nitty gritty details of the style and stuff like that. But it was like being with Strike and going with him to those places (especially to the ones I have been in London) and as if he is guiding us through the solution slowly as and when he discovers them. That way it was very well written. It is not only the story of Lula but also the story of Strike who is more human and deals with his fair share of problems in the daily life (his fragile ego, loans, threats, estranged father, lost leg, cheating girlfriend, beautiful and efficient assistant 🙂 – he is a man after all, but a very decent one at that). There is more talking to people and checking on Internet for details that might have been missed.  He talks to one and then to next and then to the third etc and slowly and steadily he builds up the days prior to and on the day of Lula death and how the scenes might have panned out. And the final encounter in his dingy small office.

Robin , the very efficient assistant who slowly warms up to Strike , as he does too , has her fair share to do too. Thank God she gets to remain with Strike at the end. I like to read more of them. Their chemistry is different (not that of lovers, remember she is engaged and faithful) and its warming. I like the names Robin & Strike. Quite unique.

I really liked it and waiting for the sequel to it if any.