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Book Club Collection: 'The Silkworm' by Robert Galbraith

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'The Silkworm' by Robert Galbraith

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Book Cover

'The Silkworm' discussion guide

Summary

Robert Galbraith is the pen name of author JK Rowling.

The Silkworm, book two in the Cormoran Strike series

It takes a unique mind to solve a unique crime.

A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, The Silkworm is the second in the highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant Robin Ellacott.

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he 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 realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives – so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.

And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before… 
(Summary provided by the author)

About the Author

What’s the motivation and inspiration behind the Cormoran Strike novels? What approach is taken to the development of the characters, the plots, the locations and everything else, in these intriguing and complex stories?

Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series is classic contemporary crime fiction from a master story-teller, rich in plot, characterisation and detail. Galbraith’s debut into crime fiction garnered acclaim amongst critics and crime fans alike.

The first five novels The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014), Career of Evil (2015), Lethal White (2018), Troubled Blood (2020), The Ink Black Heart (2022) and The Running Grave (2023) all topped the national and international bestseller lists and have been adapted for television, produced by Brontë Film and Television, with The Ink Black Heart (Season 6) coming soon.

Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym of J.K. Rowling, bestselling author of the Harry Potter series and The Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults. After Harry Potter, the author chose crime fiction for her next books, a genre she has always loved as a reader. She wanted to write a contemporary whodunit, with a credible back story.

J.K. Rowling’s original intention for writing as Robert Galbraith was for the books to be judged on their own merit, and to establish Galbraith as a well-regarded name in crime in its own right.

Now Robert Galbraith’s true identity is widely known, J.K. Rowling continues to write the crime series under the Galbraith pseudonym to keep the distinction from her other writing and so people will know what to expect from a Cormoran Strike novel.
(Information provided by the author)