But where I am now in my life, it's not something I seek out. There's only one major exception - Louise Penny, who writes mysteries unlike anything I've ever read, using the conventions of the genre to tell deep stories about broken people, with such empathy and compassion and truth that I need to read each and every one.
When it was revealed that J.K. Rowling was writing mysteries under a pseudonym, honestly, it felt like a perfect fit - she's very good at laying down clues so deftly that you don't realize until a reread that they were always there. She's good at shaping a whole story knowing how it's going to end. I read the first Cormoran Strike book, and was pleasantly impressed. I just got around to reading the second and, now I'm in a bit of a weird spot.
They're fine. It's not that they're not fine. It's just that with The Silkworm, fine meant "very much like most other mysteries I've read and no depth that makes me want to plow further," unlike Louise Penny, who can make me cry buckets with a scene in a car with a duck. That's right, a duck.
Would I be reading or keep reading these books if it wasn't J.K. Rowling writing them? Probably not. Her writing style is good. Her mystery construction is good. It's just that mysteries, in general, are not my genre, and I don't get much exciting out of them. Every once in a while, for a comfort read, sure, but they're not leaping onto my To-Read Pile, nor do I have several lists of just mysteries to read, unlike SF/F where the number of those lists I'm pulling from just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
So, where does that leave me with The Silkworm. Back at "it's fine," and in that vast middle territory where I wouldn't avoid another one of the Galbraith Cormoran Strike books, but neither would I seek them out.
In this one, Cormoran is asked by a writer's wife to find him after he's stalked off again, in his favourite role as aging enfant terrible of the literary scene. Cormoran finds instead Owen's body, and while the police are more than happy to pin this particular (and very gruesome) killing on the wife, he's sure that she's innocent, but that her usual demeanour works against her when gaining sympathy. It's a nice recognition that not being all that likeable is not the same as being a murderer.
Taking on this case nets Cormoran little money, but does plunge him deeper into London's literary world, including the huge blow-up that happened about Owen's last work, a manuscript called libelous by everyone who reads it, and was quickly dropped by his publishing company because he's horrifically mean to everyone who works there. Everyone hated him, so who killed him? (This is where we're lacking a bit of emotional connection - like Cormoran, I didn't think the wife was guilty, but we don't get that much time with her, and there's no one I connected with strongly to make the murder being solved more pressing.)
Robin, in the meantime, is hoping to become more Cormoran's detective partner than his secretary, and there are, for a while, a lot of misunderstandings between the two as her wedding day approaches as well. This is all done a little obviously - either this is going to end up with Cormoran and Robin getting together in some future book, or with her unhappily married, but either way, it feels fairly pat, like they relate to each other as they do because that's how characters of these sorts are supposed to interact. I do appreciate Robin becoming a bigger part of the books, though.
This is a sufficiently satisfying mystery that I don't mind having read it, but there's no depth that is making me anxious for more. If you're a mystery reader, this might be up your alley. If you're not, it's probably not.
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