MowryJournal.com   Life's Passions

Sometimes, it’s good not to remember everything.

I had been reading a LOT of science fiction lately. I’d gotten into a groove, reading space opera after space opera on my Kindle. This genre has a lot of self-published books available, and those books are relatively cheap … and I have read many.

And then I realized that I was getting tired of the things you often find in self-published books. Formulaic writing. Redundancy. No editing.

Poor quality , in other words. You get what you pay for, and I wasn’t paying much for these books.

So, that itch had come to a natural end, and it was time to move on.

Amazon, in all of its wisdom, sent me an email (that I had requested!) about a new release from Robert Galbraith, called The Silkworm. It wasn’t as cheap as the self-published books, but I did remember liking the protagonist, the elegantly named Cormoran Strike.

I bought the book.

And, oh my goodness, what an incredible difference to be reading a work by a great author with skillful editing. LOVED this book.

I was about 1/3 of the way into it when I remembered that this book was written under a pseudonym. Robert Galbraith is actually JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. I am pleased to report that I did not remember that until I was totally in love with this book. I recommend it to you heartily.

The book is decidedly NOT youth fiction. It’s a murder mystery, and the victim suffered a grisly demise. Gore is there. Sexual deviancy is there. But … not in a flamboyant way, and not in a fashion that called unnecessary attention to the spectacle.

The book is surprisingly free of the street language and overt sexuality that typifies much of American fiction in this genre.

So, please, pick up a copy download the file and enjoy The Silkworm. If you didn’t follow my instruction to read the first novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, then do that as well … though both novels do stand on their own very well.

J. K. Rowling. Image by Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty

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The Cuckoo’s Calling