If you aren't up to date on the publication and release drama surrounding the Cuckoo's Calling author, I'll give you a second to catch up. Good? Okay. The Cuckoo's Calling by J.K. Rowling was orignally masqueraded as a excellent debut novel by newcomer Robert Galbraith. In the statement "debut novel", critics reveal a bias toward letting some flaws slide and overlooking the less-than0stellar details of the book, while praising the good things it does well. Now that we know Robert Galbraith is not a newcomer, and no less he is the great J.K. Rowling, I think it's time we all looked at it through the lens of a regular critique: that this is the third outing of a well-known author... and it is also her weakest.The Cuckoo's Calling concerns itself with the apparent suicide of super model Lula Landry, who jumped out of her third floor balcony due to depression. Our detective is Cormoran Strike, a one-legged veteran-turned-private-eye, who finds himself randomly teamed up with a young woman named Robin, who was sent over by a temp service that he forgot to cancel. After receiving the assignment from a worried brother of Lula's, the two hit the streets of London to find out what actually happened the night the model died.The plot is surprisingly feeble, especially for a murder mystery. From the first few pages of the novel, there isn't anything particularly gripping or suspenseful about what is going to happen. You know two things from the get-go: there is a mystery and we will get a resolution eventually. There never was a "how are we going to figure this out?" or "what will we do if we can't?" moment-- Strike lines up a list of suspects and witnesses and goes through them, one by one, for 400 pages. Each suspect lasts one to two chapters, they tell there side of the story, and then Strike moves. Absolutely no clues are given to the reader during this time, and then somewhere around page 400, a surge of true information comes out and then the book is neatly wrapped up. This makes the plot structure very weird, like one long expository flatline and then a huge drop of a sudden resolution.But despite the plot, the writing in here is superb. It's what you'd expect from the first person to make a billion dollars writing books. The writing is tight, clean, and clinical at times, matching the investigative nature of the story. At first, this may seem a little jarring, and hard to get in to. A few of the paragraphs do tend to go on a sentence fragment or two too long. But the writing does it's job, never gets in the way of the story, and pulls the reader along the way... even if the plot doesn't.The dialogue in this book is phenomenal, easily one of it's strongest points. Each line of each character's speech is carefully written, hand picked to reflect their background, their views, and their characteristics. It is truly a treat to visit each and every witness or suspect and get their side of the story, even if that story isn't compelling. From Tansy Bestigui to Guy Som&eacute;, each character has distinctive speech patterns, a feat which does not go unnoticed after working through each of the novel's 40 or so characters. Sometimes the author even writes in Dialect, which goes well in every case except for one particular one (Lula Landry's birth mother, who's cockney drawl was a headache to read and interpret, especially for an American).After sifting through the various things this book has to offer, you finally get to the end. Many readers and reviews before me have praised this part of the book, but in my opinion, it was nothing special. The loose ends get tied up in a satisfactory way, but nothing shocking or surprising really happens, and, in truth, some of the motives for one specific character get a little murky and quite silly. Of the eight hundred million things that are clarified and revealed to the reader in the final forty pages, only one of them managed to actually surprise me, and it wasn't the "oh dang!" moment I was expecting from a mystery with this many high reviews.I'm not sure if my opinion on this book is going to change your mind over whether or not you read it. I mean, come on, it's JK Rowling, it's the talk of the month. You're going to read it. But I hope that my points inspired some thought in you over whether or not you enjoyed this book. As for me? I'm surprised this is the one all the hubbub is about. Personally, I thoughtThe Casual Vacancywas a much better book with a way more solid ending. 

Question: Was a long chapter?
Answer: A few of the paragraphs do tend to go on a sentence fragment or two too long