Classic detective story wrapped in beguiling figure drawing

This is the crime of JK Rowling, to which we have been waiting for. As "The Casual Vacancy" came out, thought so many - myself included - because of the flap text ("When Barry Fairbrother suddenly this..."), It will go to the elucidation of a crime, but then negotiated the book of the crime capitalism is. But now the time has come: "The Cuckoo's Calling" is, so to speak, "Casual Vacancy" as crime. Again, someone dies in the prologue. Here then is where the search for traces of the relations of the deceased. Again the ground dialogue is the means of narrative. Again, it comes to a critical study of society. - But it occurs, unlike there, a hero on the scene - the detective Cormoran Strike - and in order to unlock a classic Krimiplot which ends with the unmasking of the killer.

At first glance, "The Cuckoo's Calling" appeared to me as a crime even almost right: The mentally unstable supermodel plunges to his death, and the droves, drawn from life, spent detective who gets to Enlightenment - which promised too much cliché. But the stereotypes are filling up within a few pages with life, and therein lies the Captivating the book. The detective Strike is appointed to investigate into the death of the brother of the deceased, because, unlike the police, he does not believe in suicide. Three months have passed since the death of the Models, therefore Strike can not back traces more immediate. So he asked everyone who had on their last day to do with the dead. So most of the book is a series of talks.
And in these conversations, in the perception of gestures, facial expressions, flashes of personality layers, the modern London rises with the rich and famous that make the staff of the novel, in gripping reality and liveliness. Each side character receives a unique life of its own, which Rowling sometimes fail is characterized with a few strokes. This ability to bring credible characters to life, I see now Rowling's greatest art. Strike and his secretary and assistant Robin Ellacott come alive as sympathetic, complex people you want to follow. So practiced "The Cuckoo's Calling" at the end to me a similar spell like the Harry Potter books: I had eingeträumt me in this story and wanted more. It was fortunate that the second volume - "The Silk Worm" already comes out in two weeks.
One should appreciate these masterly psychological portrayal, because external voltage elements, there is little: No shooting, no chase, no blood, no kidnapping, no showdown. The tension - and I was able to book hardly put it down - arises from the people drawing from the search for tiny traces in the talks, the Strike leads, and from the classic style matching the sealed chamber: The police also comes about for verdict "suicide" because no one may have been in the model. The house was locked and monitored. Where could the gaps in the evidence be?
Besides making Rowling the book a social study of the super rich. This layer, in which it is itself pushed forward unexpectedly is, you remained markedly alien, and it may portray this milieu with the outside view: people who are filthy rich, but none the wiser, more educated or better than anyone else, but also vulgar in their language, selfish, ruthless. The choleric film producer, the outrageous designer, the make-up artist talkative - they all think mainly se, and disclose it in moments of weakness a human core, which makes them more than just socially critical clichés.
So. Enough recommendation. Finally, a note for discussion: out of habit, I read the book in the original. In Harry Potter what because many words and language games are indeed advisable untranslatable (I ponder still sometimes how I would "Voldy's gone moldy" translation). "The Cuckoo's Calling" on the other hand provides a translator no unsolvable problems, but who is not very safe in English, could with the slang, talk to some people who have problems. One can therefore confidently read the book in German.