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DURING A COCKTAIL PARTY in Robert Galbraith's (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling's) endlessly entertaining detective novel "The Silkworm," the publisher Daniel Chard gives a toast in which he observes that "publishing is currently undergoing a period of rapid changes and fresh challenges, but one thing remains as true today as it was a century ago: Content is king." Coming from an obscure, midlist, mystery author named Robert Galbraith such a statement might go unnoticed. But when the same passage is written by J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series and one of the most successful authors of all time, the words cannot help having a far greater impact. Therein lies the problem and the great joy of this book. You want to judge "The Silkworm" on its own merit, author be damned. It is, in fact, this critic's job to do so. But writing that type of blind review in this case, while a noble goal, is inauthentic if not downright disingenuous. If an author's biography always casts some shadow on the work, here, the author is comparatively a total solar eclipse coupled with a supermassive black hole. This is especially true because Rowling (let's stop pretending) makes matters worse (or better) by taking on the world of publishing. Leonora Quine, the dowdy wife of the novelist Owen Quine, hires our hero, the British private detective Cormoran Strike (first seen last year in Rowling's "The Cuckoo's Calling"), to investigate the disappearance of her husband. Owen Quine has just written a nasty novel that reveals dark, life-ruining secrets of almost everyone he knows. Owen, his wife tells Strike, is probably at a writer's retreat. Finding him should be a routine matter. But, of course, nothing here is what it seems. When Owen Quine ends up gruesomely slaughtered - in a murder scene ripped from his new novel - Strike and his comely sidekick, Robin Ellacott (think Sherlock and Watson, Nick and Nora, Batman and, well, Robin), enter the surprisingly seedy world of book publishing. They investigate those who were thinly disguised in Quine's final manuscript, all of whom offer insights into the world of the writer. The suspect pool includes his editor, Jerry Waldegrave ("Writers are different. ... I've never met one who was any good who wasn't screwy"); his agent, Elizabeth Tassel ("Have you any idea ... how many people think they can write? You cannot imagine the crap I am sent"); his publisher, Daniel Chard ("We need readers. ... More readers. Fewer writers"); and the pompous literary novelist Michael Fancourt ("Like most writers, I tend to find out what I feel on a subject by writing about it. It is how we interpret the world, how we make sense of it"). AS WRITTEN BY Rowling, "The Silkworm" takes "write what you know" and raises it to the 10th power. Is this crime fiction, a celebrity tell-all, juicy satire or all of the above? The blessing/curse here is that you turn the pages for the whodunit, but you never lose sight that these observations on the publishing world come from the very top. This makes complete escape, something mandatory for a crime novel, almost impossible - but then again, who cares? If you want a more complete escape, pick up another book. Reading Rowling on writing is delicious fun. Even the title of the novel (and the English translation of the poisoned-pen manuscript) is "The Silkworm" because a silkworm's life is "a metaphor for the writer, who has to go through agonies to get at the good stuff." On envy: "If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels." On Internet trolls: "With the invention of the Internet, any subliterate cretin can be Michiko Kakutani." On a literary male writer's inability to create realistic female characters: "His women are all temper ... and tampons." On a writer named Dorcus Pengelly (some of these names are straight out of Hogwarts): "She writes pornography dressed up as historical romance," but our murder victim still would "have killed for her sales." There is even a debate on the merits of self-publishing when Quine's mistress whines that she's going the "indie" route because "traditional publishers wouldn't know good books if they were hit over the head with them." Are these opinions shared by Rowling? Don't know, don't care. In the end, despite the window dressing, Rowling's goal is to entertain and entertain she does. If we can't forget that she is a celebrity, we're also constantly reminded that she is a master storyteller. Push aside J. K. Rowling (a gender-neutral pseudonym Joanne Rowling took so that boys would read Harry Potter) and judge the book on the merits of Robert Galbraith (a full-fledged male pseudonym with no such neutrality), and "The Silkworm" is still a suspenseful, well-written and assured British detective novel. Strike, who lost his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, is described as a "limping prize fighter," a man who looms so large, "the room seemed much smaller with his arrival." Potter fans will want to make a connection between Cormoran Strike and Rubeus Hagrid, the beloved giant in the Harry Potter novels, but such comparisons feel forced. If J. K. Rowling never leaves our minds while reading "The Silkworm," the world of Harry Potter, to Rowling/Galbraith's credit, never enters it. We are squarely in the gritty, gloomy and glitzy real world of the Muggles, except maybe when she describes a noisy piece of furniture in Strike's office as the "farting leather sofa." For a moment, the reader can almost see the sofa coming to life in the halls of Slytherin House. "the silkworm" most often feels like a traditional British crime novel albeit set in the present day, complete with eccentric suspects, a girl Friday (Oh, when will they see that they are meant for each other?) and a close friend in the police department whose life Strike saved in the war. But Rowling gives some of the old saws a new spin. Robin, for example, isn't a longtime friend or ex-lover - she starts out as a young temp Strike first meets in "The Cuckoo's Calling." Strike himself may at first appear to be something we have seen too often - a brooding, damaged detective, with a life-altering war injury, financially on the brink, who's recently lost his longtime girlfriend - but there is an optimism to him that is refreshing and endearing. Even though he's hobbling down the street, often in great pain, "Strike was unique among the men not merely for his size but for the fact that he did not look as though life had pummeled him into a quiescent stupor." Strike also shares a trait with many great fictional detectives : He is darn good company. There are musings on fame (Strike is the illegitimate son of the rock star Jonny Rokeby), the media (the book opens with a passing shot at the British phone hacking scandal that engulfed many celebrities, including Rowling), book marketing (Quine's wife on her husband's sluggish sales: "It's up to the publishers to give 'em a push. They wouldn't never get him on TV or anything like he needed"), not to mention e-books and the digital age of publishing. But Rowling saves her most poignant observations for the disappointments of marriage and relationships. The likable Robin is engaged to a pill named Matthew and cannot see, as Strike and the reader can, that "the condition of being with Matthew was not to be herself." When he thinks about his own sister's marriage and those like it, Strike wonders about the "endless parade of suburban conformity." His private-eye job of catching straying spouses makes him lament "the tedious variations on betrayal and disillusionment that brought a never-ending stream of clients to his door." He sees the "willfully blind allegiance" of long-suffering wives and the false "hero worship" of male writers by the women who supposedly love them. When his sister asks Strike if he puts up with his destructive ex-girlfriend "because she's beautiful," Strike's honest answer is devastating: "It helps." Do these observations take on more weight when we know that the writer is a superstar female author rather than a semi-obscure male one? I think they do. The book isn't perfect. It's a tad too long, and the suspect interrogations grow repetitive. Sometimes the reader feels Rowling may be trying too hard to move away from Hogwarts. The fair amount of swearing reminds one of a rebellious teenager set free. Some will also argue that while Harry Potter altered the landscape in a way no children's novel ever has, here Rowling does the opposite: She plays to form. "The Silkworm" is a very well-written, wonderfully entertaining take on the traditional British crime novel, but it breaks no new ground, and Rowling seems to know that. Robert Galbraith may proudly join the ranks of English, Scottish and Irish crime writers such as Tana French, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, John Connolly, Kate Atkinson and Peter Robinson, but she wouldn't overshadow them. Still, to put any author on that list is very high praise. The upside of being as well known as Rowling is obvious - sales, money, attention. That's not what she's after here. The downside - and her reason for using the pseudonym - is that telling a story needs a little bit of anonymity. Rowling deserves that chance, even if she can't entirely have it. We can't unring that bell, but in a larger sense, we readers get more. We get the wry observations when we can't ignore the author's identity and we get the escapist mystery when we can. In the end, the fictional publisher Daniel Chard got it right: "Content is king," and on that score, both J.K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith triumph. 'Writers are different. ... I've never met one who was any good who wasn't screwy.' HARLAN COBEN is the author, most recently, of "Missing You." His new young adult novel, "Found," will be published this fall.

Cormoran Strike's second appearance (after The Cuckoo's Calling) involves the curmudgeonly detective in the publishing world when a distraught Loretta Quine elicits his help in locating her missing husband. At the root of the investigation is Owen Quine's missing novel, a poisonous allegory defaming nearly everyone in his life. Then Owen is found dead, leaving behind too many motives and too many suspects. Intricately plotted, focused from beginning to end, and narrated by Robert Glenister, this work is a perfect marriage of novel and performance. Listeners who are familiar with the first work in this series will enjoy it more, but others won't have any trouble following the plot. VERDICT Highly recommended. ["In her Galbraith persona, author J.K. Rowling has created memorable characters who develop and grow throughout the course of the novel. The mystery itself is clever, and the frequent darts aimed at the publishing world are entertaining," read the review of the Mulholland: Little, Brown hc, Xpress Reviews, 7/10/14.]-Janet Martin, Southern Pines P.L., NC (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Once again writing under the pseudonym Galbraith, J.K. Rowling begins her new fair-play whodunit a few months after the conclusion of The Cuckoo's Calling (2013). Here, London private eye Comoran Strike and his almost aggressively efficient assistant, Robin Ellacott, are searching for the murderer of novelist Owen Quine, the author of a scurrilous roman a clef certain to damage the careers of an assortment of publishing power players if printed. Popular British actor Glenister (MI-5, Hustle) takes on a highly-charged crime puzzle, peopled by a panoply of mainly vile suspects as well as a totally engaging pair of detectives. Matching Rowling's praiseworthy ear for dialogue, he catches the subtleties-a touch of snark in cocktail party chatter, the arrogance in the voice of the overprivileged, the fear almost hidden in the raspy croak of a chain-smoking literary agent. His Strike shifts from a weary attitude when dealing with his personal life to an air of vitality and confidence when on the job. Robin, too, is at her best when working, sounding bright and on top of things; while at home, her conversation is dulled by her increasing uncertainty about marriage to fiance. This developing doubt seems justified, since the husband-to-be, as Glenister's interpretation perfectly captures, is a demanding and humorless bore. A Little, Brown/Mulholland hardcover. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

In her second pseudonymous outing as Galbraith, J.K. Rowling continues her examination of famethose who want it, those who avoid it, those who profit from it.Cormoran Strike, Rowlings hard-living private eye, isnt as close to the edge as he was in his first appearance, The Cuckoos Calling (2013). His success at proving supermodel Lula Landry was murdered has brought him more clients than he can handlemostly businessmen who think their lovers are straying and divorcing wives looking for their husbands assetsand hes even rented a small apartment above his office near Charing Cross Road. His accidental tempturned-assistant, Robin Ellacott, is dying to stretch her investigative muscles, but she has to deal with her fiance, Matthew, who still wishes shed taken that better-paying job in human resources. Then odd sad-sack Leonora Quine comes in asking Strike to find her missing husband, Owen, a fading enfant terrible novelist. Strike soon discovers that Owen had written a baroque fantasy novel in which he exposed the secrets of everyone he knowsincluding his editor, publisher and a famous writer with whom he had a falling out years earlierand his agent had just sent it out for consideration. Rowling has great fun with the book industry: Editors, agents and publishers all want to meet the detective, but only over lunches at fancy restaurants where hes expected to foot the bill. Its no big surprise when Strike finds the writers dead bodythough its certainly gruesome, as someone killed him in the same extravagantly macabre way he disposed of the villain of his unpublished book. As Strike tries to figure out who murdered Owen, the writer is splashed across the front pages of the tabloids in a way he would have loved when he was alive, while the detective tries to play down his own growing fame.Rowling proves once again that shes a master of plotting over the course of a series; you can see her planting seeds, especially when it comes to Robin, which can be expected to bear narrative fruit down the line. It will be a pleasure to watch what happens. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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