The Silkworm Explained

Italic Title:(see above) -->
The Silkworm
Author:Robert Galbraith
Country:United Kingdom
Language:English
Genre:Crime fiction
Publisher:Sphere Books
(Little, Brown & Company)
Pub Date:19 June 2014
Pages:454
Isbn:978-1-4087-0402-8
Preceded By:The Cuckoo's Calling
Followed By:Career of Evil

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]

Plot summary

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.

Characters

Main characters

Bombyx Mori characters

Other characters

Reception

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]

In other media

Television

See main article: Strike (TV series). 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]

Notes and References

  1. News: Robert Galbraith's novel 'The Silkworm' to be released in June. News 18. Lopamudra. Chatterjee. 6 March 2014. 9 January 2020.
  2. News: JK Rowling Will Release Another Book, 'Career of Evil,' As Robert Galbraith. HuffPost. Jessica. Goodman. 24 April 2015. 9 January 2020.
  3. News: Val. McDermid. The Silkworm by JK Rowling as Robert Gilbreath review-this series has legs. The Guardian. 18 June 2014. 9 January 2020.
  4. Web site: THE GOLD DAGGER. The Crime Writers' Association. 2014-11-21. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20141202232623/http://thecwa.co.uk/the-daggers/categories/goldsboro-gold. 2 December 2014.
  5. Web site: Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike novels to be adapted for major new BBC One drama series. BBC Media Centre. 10 December 2014. 16 August 2015.
  6. Web site: JK Rowling's 'Cuckoo's Calling' To Become BBC Drama Series. Deadline Hollywood. Nancy. Tartaglione. 10 December 2014. 16 August 2015.
  7. Web site: What we do. Brontê TV & Film. 9 January 2020.
  8. News: Tom Burke to play JK Rowling's Cormoran Strike on BBC One. BBC News. 7 September 2016. 9 January 2020.
  9. Web site: Holliday Grainger Joins Tom Burke for BBC and HBO's Strike Series. Brontë TV & Film. 4 November 2016. 9 January 2020.
  10. Web site: Meet the cast of Strike: The Silkworm. Radio Times. 9 January 2020.
  11. News: 4 September 2017 . Strike: The Silkworm – everything you need to know about the next adventure for JK Rowling's sleuth . The Daily Telegraph . London . 0307-1235.