A detective novel secretly written by Britain’s best-selling author J.K. Rowling surged to the top of bestseller lists on Monday after the true identity of the author was revealed.
The Cuckoo’s Calling, billed as the debut novel of retired military policeman Robert Galbraith, was released in April and won praise from crime writers and critics who hailed the unknown author as a new force in the genre.
“I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience,” Rowling said in a statement. “It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.”
The Cuckoo’s Calling is a story about a war veteran turned private investigator who is called in to probe the mysterious death of a model.
Over the weekend, the Sunday Times revealed that the novel’s true author was Harry Potter writer J.K. Rowling. The Times said it was investigating “how a first time author with a background in the army and the civilian industry could write such an assured debut novel” when it connected the dots. The paper said clues included the fact that Rowling and Galbraith shared the same agent and editor and that the style and subject matter resembled Rowling’s work.
