The Silkworm

by Robert Galbraith

Hardback £20, Ebook £9.99
Published on 19th June 2014

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.

 For The Cuckoo’s Calling:

‘The most engaging British private detective to emerge so far this year… it marks the start of a fine crime career’
Daily Mail

‘a sharply contemporary novel full of old-fashioned virtues… wonderfully fresh and funny’
Daily Telegraph

‘sparkling dialogue and a convincing portrayal of the emptiness of wealth and glamour’
The Times

‘an engrossing and well-crafted who-dunnit. Unsurprisingly excellent’
Sunday Mirror

‘An accomplished piece that thoroughly deserves its retrospective success’
Financial Times

‘The Silkworm reminds me why I fell in love with crime fiction in the first place’
Val McDermid

‘One of the most unique and compelling detectives I've come across in years’
Mark Billingham

Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and The Casual Vacancy.