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2014 crime fiction novel by J. K. Rowling From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Silkworm is a 2014 crime fiction novel written by J. K. Rowling, and published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.[1] It is the second novel in the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels and was followed by Career of Evil in 2015, Lethal White in 2018,Troubled Blood in 2020, The Ink Black Heart in 2022 and The Running Grave in 2023.[2]
Author | Robert Galbraith |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Crime fiction |
Publisher | Sphere Books (Little, Brown & Company) |
Publication date | 19 June 2014 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Pages | 454 |
ISBN | 978-1-4087-0402-8 |
Preceded by | The Cuckoo's Calling |
Followed by | Career of Evil |
Several months after solving the Lula Landry case, Cormoran Strike is asked by Leonora Quine to locate her novelist husband Owen, a controversial figure whose attempts to recreate the success of his first novel have failed. Owen disappeared around the same time his latest book, Bombyx Mori, was leaked. The book has been deemed unpublishable due to its mixture of sexual assault, torture, and cannibalism as well as its slanderous depiction of the people in Owen's life. Strike sets out interviewing the others portrayed in the manuscript: Owen's lover Kathryn Kent and her ward Phillip "Pippa" Midgley, both aspiring writers, Quine's agent Elizabeth Tassel, editor Jerry Waldegrave, publisher Daniel Chard and Quine's former friend Michael Fancourt, a famous author. The suspects, however, soon turn on one another, accusing each other of killing Owen and ghost-writing Bombyx Mori.
As the investigation proceeds, Strike's relationship with his assistant Robin Ellacott grows strained, as she feels neglected by him and he feels unwilling to put her in a position where she is forced to choose between her job and her fiancé Matthew. The animosity is tempered when Strike finds Owen's body, which has been mutilated, doused in acid and posed to resemble the killing of the protagonist at the end of Bombyx Mori. Metropolitan Police later arrest Leonora for the murder, prompting Strike to set out to clear her name. Robin's relationship with Matthew comes under pressure when his mother dies and their wedding is delayed, and she almost misses the funeral to help Strike. She later confronts Strike about his intentions only to be warned that she will be asked to do things Matthew will not like if she becomes an investigator.
With evidence against Leonora mounting, Strike focuses on Fancourt, whose character in the manuscript is inconsistent and seems contrary to his relationship with Owen. Several years earlier, after Fancourt's wife Elspeth wrote a novel that was panned by critics, an anonymous parody's release prompted her to kill herself. Fancourt accused Owen of authoring the parody and Tassel of enabling him. Strike soon deduces Bombyx Mori is a metaphor for someone else's life, its author pretending to be Owen, and he engineers a plan to catch the killer. With his half-brother Alexander's help, he approaches Fancourt at a party and asks to speak to him in private. When Tassel joins them, Strike reveals that he knows Tassel wrote the fake Bombyx Mori and killed Owen.
Owen had been blackmailing Tassel, a failed author herself, for twenty years over her authorship of the parody of Elspeth's novel. When he approached her with the original concept for Bombyx Mori, Tassel concocted an elaborate plan. She conspired with Owen to stage his disappearance, rewrote Bombyx Mori, killed Owen, and framed Leonora for the murder. Tassel attempts to flee, only to be caught in a plan devised by Strike with Robin and Alexander and arrested.
The following week, Leonora is released from prison, Fancourt acknowledges the original Bombyx Mori manuscript's literary value and plans to write an introduction for its publication, and Strike tells Robin that he has enrolled her in investigative training courses as a Christmas gift.
Much like The Cuckoo's Calling, The Silkworm was met with critical acclaim, selling more copies than its predecessor in its opening weeks. Val McDermid from The Guardian gave the novel a positive review, but criticised the descriptions of the different London settings, which she considered superfluous: "I suspect that having spent so many books describing a world only she knew has left her with the habit of telling us rather too much about a world most of us know well enough to imagine for ourselves".[3] The novel was also nominated for a Gold Dagger Award at the Crime Writers' Association Daggers 2015.[4]
On 10 December 2014, it was announced that the novels would be adapted as a television series for BBC One, starting with The Cuckoo's Calling.[5][6] Rowling executive produced the series through her production company Brontë Film and Television.[7]
In September 2016, it was announced that Tom Burke was set to play Cormoran Strike,[8] and in November 2016 it was announced that Holliday Grainger had been cast as Strike's assistant, Robin Ellacott.[9] Additional cast of the adaptation include Kerr Logan as Matthew Cunliffe, Monica Dolan as Leonora Quine, Lia Williams as Elizabeth Tassel, Jeremy Swift as Owen Quine, Dorothy Atkinson as Kathryn Kent, Dominic Mafham as Jerry Waldegrave, Tim McInnerny as Daniel Chard, Peter Sullivan as Michael Fancourt, Sargon Yelda as DI Richard Anstis, Sarah Gordy as Orlando Quine and Natasha O'Keeffe as Charlotte Campbell.[10]
The two-episode dramatisation of The Silkworm initially aired in September 2017.[11]
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