The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith
My Rating: 2/5 Stars
This ain’t Harry Potter. For those of you who may have such expectations looming in the back of your mind, even as you recognize that J.K. Rowling wrote it under a pseudonym, and that it’s a mystery, and that it involves a war veteran PI, and that there are no wizards or classrooms or dragons or Quidditch matches or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…yeah, you have to set those expectations aside. Otherwise, your disappointment level will spike off the charts, and you’ll toss your Kindle or hardcover edition through an open window, never to be seen or heard from again.
Robert Galbraith certainly has chops in the mystery writing universe, even if his first effort falls a bit short. The stuttering formality turned me off from the beginning, and carried through all the way to the end, even if the stick might have been removed from the buttocks for brief periods of time, the majority of which revolved around enthusiastic sidekick Robin. Formal dialogue splattered with dashes filled the pages, and an overemphasis with the ellipsis further helped separate me from the tale, and was closely followed by characters who liked to overstate and expound upon points a little too forcefully, pounding the corpse repeatedly after the last breath had already expired from the body.
Other than Robin, formal, stilted characters seemed to plaster the pages, many of whom felt dry cleaned, instead of going through the normal rinse cycle. The plot plodded along at a slow, steady pace, and proved slow to develop despite the dashing dead body early on. The ending of THE CUCKOO’S CALLING would have been aided by the liberal use of the delete key, and like the rest of the tale, was a bit long on atmosphere and extraneous information. While the premise proved strong and inviting, the story didn’t quite live up to its enticing origins.
On a related note, it’s probably good my NetGalley request wasn’t approved for this novel, even though I could have blown the whistle on her pseudonym a full two months before the official slip. Mulholland Books is probably patting itself on the back, as they dodged that bullet and my less than favorable review, even if it was only a temporary respite.