--- product_id: 79807141 title: "The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel, 2) Mass Market Paperback – December 22, 2015" brand: "robert galbraith" price: "€ 14.57" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 8 url: https://www.desertcart.hr/products/79807141-the-silkworm-a-cormoran-strike-novel-2-mass-market-paperback store_origin: HR region: Croatia --- # The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel, 2) Mass Market Paperback – December 22, 2015 **Brand:** robert galbraith **Price:** € 14.57 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel, 2) Mass Market Paperback – December 22, 2015 by robert galbraith - **How much does it cost?** € 14.57 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.hr](https://www.desertcart.hr/products/79807141-the-silkworm-a-cormoran-strike-novel-2-mass-market-paperback) ## Best For - robert galbraith enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted robert galbraith brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Full description not available ## Images ![The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel, 2) Mass Market Paperback – December 22, 2015 - Image 1](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/514-eW7lXfL.jpg) ![The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel, 2) Mass Market Paperback – December 22, 2015 - Image 2](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51kOyaktHtL.jpg) ![The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel, 2) Mass Market Paperback – December 22, 2015 - Image 3](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41E8NwXe7IL.jpg) ![The Silkworm (A Cormoran Strike Novel, 2) Mass Market Paperback – December 22, 2015 - Image 4](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41lEoY8XxHL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Masterful Storytelling! *by J***K on Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2014* This is J.K. Rowling’s second pseudonymous book in a crime series featuring London private investigator Cormoran Strike and his dewy-eyed eager assistant Robin Ellacott.Strike is an ex-military policeman who lost a foot in Afghanistan, and is now just turning 36 in this story that begins eight months after the conclusion of the first book in the series, Cuckoo’s Calling.Strike craves anonymity, much as he had in the army’s Special Investigation Branch, where your background and parentage didn’t matter as much as how well you did your job. But he is one of the illegitimate children of the rock star Jonny Rokeby, and when people find this out they tend to form an opinion of Strike as “no more than a famous singer’s zygote, the incidental evidence of a celebrity’s unfaithful fumble.” Strike has actually only met his biological father once, but he does know his half-siblings, and one of them, Al, helps Strike out in his latest case. In the process, Strike is amazed to discover that Al, Jonny Rokeby’s legitimate son and living a much more charmed life than Strike ever had, is envious of Strike, who has a purposefulness and usefulness that Al never has felt.This case involves the murder of novelist Owen Quine. Strike had been hired by Owen’s wife Leonora to find Owen after he went missing. Strike does locate Quine, but what he finds is his body, in a very horrifying scene that not so coincidentally replicates a murder from Quine’s last as yet unpublished book, “Bombyx Mori,” Latin for “The Silkworm.” The silkworm, Quine once said, was a metaphor for the writer “who has to go through agonies to get at the good stuff….” Leonora immediately comes under suspicion but Strike is convinced she is innocent, and proceeds, with the help of the intrepid Robin, to prove it.Discussion: Rowling’s writing is impressive as usual. As the story begins, for example, Strike heads out in the cold for an early morning meeting, and observes"A huddle of couriers in fluorescent jackets cupped mugs of tea in their gloved hands beneath a stone griffin standing sentient on the corner of the market building.”What a nicely-done sentence. The couriers aren’t huddling; they are “a huddle of couriers.” The image of the cold is boosted by the fact that they clasp their tea mugs with “gloved hands.” And the alliterative “stone griffin standing sentient” adds a subtle rhythmic appeal to the description.Strike then proceeds on to the Smithfield Cafe, “a cupboard-sized cache of warmth and greasy food.” Again the alliteration cleverly draws attention to the aptness of her phrasing, as we can picture exactly just what sort of place would have both warmth *and* greasy food.Rowling pays obeisance to the common tropes of the genre - from noir elements, to Strike’s careful methodical examination of the facts, to having Strike bring all the suspects together in a Christie-like manner to facilitate the unmasking of the killer. But she does not employ the spare prose of the noir writer, exploring the philosophical issues raised by the murder and the suspects as well as just taking us through the solving of the crime.The object of Strike’s investigation being a novelist affords many opportunities for commentary on the writing and publishing business, which I found a bit distracting. It’s hard to tell whether these are “meta” observations of J.K. Rowling or if they should be considered simply as revelatory of the personalities under suspicion. I was much more taken by the many astute observations made about the nature of love and relationships. One of the authors under investigation, Michael Fancourt, muses to Strike:"We don’t love each other; we love the idea we have of each other. Very few humans understand this or can bear to contemplate it.”Later she has Strike rehearsing his relationship with his abusive former fiancée Charlotte, wondering if it fits the parameters of Fancourt's paradigm:"Perhaps he had created a Charlotte in her own image who had never existed outside his own besotted mind, but what of it? He had loved the real Charlotte too, the woman who had stripped herself bare in front of him, demanding whether he could still love her if she did this, if she confessed to this, if she treated him like this….”We can believe that Strike loved Charlotte for herself. Her cruel behavior to him serves to illuminate Strike’s steadfastness. In fact, many of the characters act as daubs from a pallet to fill in the portrait of Strike. Strike’s willingness to take on the impoverished Leonora Quine as a client, for example, places into relief his character as a champion of the downtrodden, as well as his disgust and impatience with his usual client pool of “the mistrustful, endlessly betrayed rich.”Fancourt had also expressed to Strike his belief that men are primarily driven by the need/desire for sex; if a man tells himself a particular woman is “more fascinating, more attuned to my needs and desires, than another,” he is just revealing that he is ‘a complex, highly evolved and imaginative creature who feels compelled to justify a choice made on the crudest grounds.'”Later in the story, Strike seems to substantiate Fancourt’s theory when he thinks about his sister asking him why he stayed with Charlotte:"'Why do you put up with it? Why? Just because she’s beautiful?And he had answered: ‘It helps.’She had expected him to say ‘no,’ of course. Though they spent so much time trying to make themselves beautiful, you were not supposed to admit to women that beauty mattered.”What an excellent observation.Evaluation: J.K. Rowling is a masterful storyteller no matter what name she uses. I very much look forward to more installments of this crime series. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Kept me guessing until the end *by J***S on Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2022* This is the 2nd book in this series and it's even better than the first, which I loved. The plot, the twists and turns, all kept me guessing as to "whodunnit" with every page I read. Just when I thought I knew who it was, here comes another twist. Excellent storytelling and superb writing. Well done all around and I look forward to reading the next one. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ J. K. Rowling's unlikely second act *by M***K on Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2014* Consider the challenge facing a writer who sets out to write a series of detective novels. How can he (or she) develop a protagonist who will stand out from all the other fictional detectives, lodge himself (or herself) in readers’ minds, and enter the Detectives Hall of Fame along with Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Inspector Thomas Lynley, Kinsey Millhone, Jules Maigret, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Miss Marple? (See brief descriptions of these ten famous characters here.)Put yourself in his (her) place. For starters, you could give him experience of some sort that provides the basis for a career as an investigator — say, for example, years as a cop in the Army. You might want to spice up the story by making him the comeuppance of a liaison between an A-list rock star and a druggie woman gone off the rails. Some sort of distinguishing physical characteristic might help, too, perhaps a prosthetic leg as a result of an encounter with a land mine in Afghanistan. The backstory also needs to explain why your detective is living alone in his shabby office; let’s say his crazy, gorgeous, on-again, off-again girlfriend has finally pushed him over the edge with her lying and her antics after sixteen years of misery. Finally, your newly-hatched detective will need a memorable name, so he might as well be called Cormoran Strike, his first name snatched from a giant in Welsh legend in the land of his boyhood, his surname . . . well, let’s just say it calls to mind a process similar to whatever it was that gave an actor the screen name Rip Torn.Now, make the man work for his keepStrike and his eager young assistant, Robin Ellacott, are mired in the rush of routine investigative business — mostly, tracking unfaithful husbands and cheating wives — that followed their headline-grabbing success in solving the murder of a supermodel. So, when a dowdy middle-aged woman wanders into the office asking for help in finding her husband more than a week after he disappeared, Strike jumps at the chance even though he can see no prospect of getting paid for the work: it’s a relief simply to be working for someone with seemingly pure motives.The missing husband turns out to be a famously eccentric novelist named Owen Quine. (Where does she get these names?) Quine has a reputation as a misanthrope with never a kind word to say about anyone. He is also an unrepentant womanizer who has disappeared for days on end in the past. However, this time Quine’s disappearance has followed on the delivery of his masterwork, a novel with the confounding title Bombyx mori (the Latin name for the silkworm). Convinced that Quine’s disappearance is somehow connected to the novel, Strike dives into the web of tense relationships that defined the writer’s life: his formidable agent, his editor, his publisher, his girlfriend, and a famous writer with whom Quine was close early in his career. Eccentricities abound in this literary showcase, affording the author numerous opportunities for satire of a realm she knows too well.Fearing the worst, Strike stumbles across Quine’s mutilated body, and the stakes multiply. Scotland Yard strongly believes that Quine’s widow is the killer. Strike can’t convince the police that murder is entirely alien to her character and circumstances. Working with Robin and with assorted friends and family members, Strike must identify the killer. As a reader, you know he’ll do so — but what fun along the way! You’ll be kept guessing until the end.The real backstoryWhen more than 450 million copies have sold of your first seven novels, what can you do for your next act? That’s easy, right? You tackle a different genre under a pseudonym! What could be more natural?Eschewing the fame she gained with the Harry Potter series, and sidestepping the disappointing reception for her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, Rowling created Cormoran Strike and published a story about him, The Cuckoo’s Calling, under the pen name Robert Galbraith. Even before her identity as the author was revealed, the book gained strong reviews but the praise gushed and sales spiked only after a software analyst working for The Sunday Times unmasked her by studying the word usage and syntax of her writing.The Silkworm is the second in what Rowling says will be a series of seven detective novels. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.hr/products/79807141-the-silkworm-a-cormoran-strike-novel-2-mass-market-paperback](https://www.desertcart.hr/products/79807141-the-silkworm-a-cormoran-strike-novel-2-mass-market-paperback) --- *Product available on Desertcart Croatia* *Store origin: HR* *Last updated: 2026-06-09*