I was a little disappointed in the second Comoran Strike novel. The plot is well crafted and intricate enough for me not to guess the identity of the perpetrator until the end, but there's something missing from the prose. To me it felt as if J K Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith, was already bored with her new characters, in the same way as the detective hero, Comoran Strike, is fed up and frustrated with his physical condition. Comoran is an Afghanistan war veteran with a prosthesis, and his missing leg continues to hamper his surveillance work. He does, however, have some impressive friends in high places, a fact which enables him to catch the killer in the end.
It may be that it's the subject matter of the novel - the literary world - which is making our author yawn. JK Rowling certainly has a go at each role in the publishing world; we have the celebrity-seeking mid-list writer, the ruthless agent, the self-important, successful author, the pathetic self-published writer, the blogger who cannot spell, the eccentric publisher who hates writers...OK, it may be that it was me who resented the literary caricatures.
In spite all of the above, I was keen to get to the end of the book to find out who did the ugly deed, or wether anything romantic will occur between Strike and his beautiful assistant Robin. So, I enjoyed the read, sort of.
The Silkworm is a good, dependable detective tale without too much excitement.
The Silkworm (Comoran Strike Book 2)
Price from £6.99 (Kindle edition)
