The Silkworm: JK Rowling on publishing

Blurb: Private investigator Cormoran Strike returns in a new mystery from Robert Galbraith, author of the #1 international bestseller The Cuckoo’s Calling.

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband 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 realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives—meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced.

When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before… 

Stars: 3.5/5

If anything, The Silkworm is about relationships — those that break down and apart and Cormoran and Robin’s which takes a tiny step forward. 

Leonora Quine is a mousy housewife who thrusts her way into Cormoran’s life and work, asking for his help in finding her missing husband, Owen. Cormoran is beset by rich men and women all wanting him to investigate their significant others who are cheating on them — physically or financially, and into the middle of all this is Leonora, who might not be in love with her husband, but she needs him, and wants him found.

Cormoran has a soft spot a mile wide it seems. He takes on her case and a missing person’s case becomes a murder when he finds Owen’s body. He then finds himself neck deep in the publishing world, with fierce literary agents and competitive contemporaries, all of whom had a reason to hate Owen, especially as his most recent novel was based on the publishing figures he knew, and more importantly their secrets.

Robin in the meanwhile is growing ever more discontented with working behind the desk and jumps to conclusions when Cormoran starts to mention hiring someone else to help him with his cases. The book makes it clear, repeatedly and for chapters on end, that she thought he would train her to become his partner, and instead of having this out with him, she lets it stew in her mind, increasing her anxiety and my irritation with how long this was drawn out. I would have found it vastly more entertaining to see their relationship had they had this conversation out and she became a bigger part of this investigation, with Cormoran training her. 

Instead, I got Robin stewing and stewing over this perceived slight, before actually talking to Cormoran about her concerns. And, an added bonus was Matthew, and his insecurities which Robin was left to soothe or be angry with. He’s dead weight in the book, pulling her down and what brief scenes in the book that he appeared I couldn’t actually figure out why she loved him. From what I understand, the third book gets into her back story more (and yes, I checked spoilers, because I had to know how much longer I had to endure Matthew for), and I’m assuming why she loves Matthew, but I find honestly, I don’t care. I understand something has shaped her, but I am so bored of Matthew and what he does to Robin right now, I’d rather just skip book 3 and wait for book 4. 

I started this review saying this book was about relationships, but I didn’t say I liked the way things turned out. I understand that Robin needs to realise she’s growing, past Matthew and his idea of her in some ways. He’s her safety net, but I think this was about her realising she might love him, but his idea of her? It’s not who she’s growing into. 

Cormoran suffers a little of the same fate that Robin does, with his obsessing over Charlotte, their relationship and its end. Again, I don’t care. She hasn’t been in the book long enough for me to care what she means to him and telling me about their 16-year relationship just honestly made me bored. I really do understand that Cormoran had to sink to these depths to realise he’s grown past her, but it was boring and I would have rather preferred Robin and Cormoran fighting than this. 

As much as Robin and Cormoran’s relationships have issues, they’re still healthy next to the relationships in the world of publishing that the case takes them into — affairs, blackmail, sheer hatred of your spouse and so on. It’s a disheartening world, where nothing about publishing is good it seems, and admittedly, I did wonder how much of this was based on JK Rowling’s own experiences in publishing. 

The Silkworm is an enjoyable book overall, with passages that drag on far too long when it comes to Cormoran’s and Robin’s personal relationships outside each other. Those relationships are less interesting and infinitely boring as they are present in this book, but I do see the need for them and for both characters to grow past them, or in Robin’s case begin to realise she can.

 This felt a little like it was treading water in some stages, but the messy, complicated world of publishing made for a GREAT read. What books have given you an insight into an industry you wouldn’t normally have?