Cormoran Strike
Cormoran Strike is a series of crime fiction novels written by British author Joanne Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The story chronicles the cases of private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott. Five novels in the series have so far been published. Rowling stated after the third book that she has plans for at least another ten. The sixth novel, tentatively titled "The Ink Black Heart", is scheduled to be released in 2022. The first two novels were adapted for BBC One and aired as a series of six episodes in summer 2017. A  second series, based on the third book "Career of Evil", aired as two episodes in February and March 2018. A third series, an adaptation of "Lethal White", aired as four episodes in August and September 2020. A fourth series, an adaptation of "Troubled Blood", is scheduled for 2022. Plot. In 2010, Cormoran Strike (b. 23 Nov. 1974)—private detective, ex–Royal Military Police Special Investigation Branch investigator and the illegitimate son of famous rock star Jonny Rokeby (the result of an affair with a notorious groupie, Leda Strike)—is broke, and his birth father's business agent is calling in the loan  that he gave to Strike to open his agency. Strike lost the lower half of his right leg in an attack in Afghanistan. He had previously studied at Oxford, but left in his second year to join the Army following the death of his mother. The first novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, begins with Strike being hired by John Bristow, the brother of adopted supermodel Lula Landry, who had fallen from her balcony three months previously. Bristow wants Strike to investigate his sister's supposed suicide. Strike also meets Robin Ellacott (b. 9 Oct. 1984), who has been sent to  act as his temporary secretary despite the fact he can barely afford her. Ellacott has just become engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Matthew, with their wedding set to happen later that year. Although Strike only hires her for one week, she turns out to be much more competent (and useful) than he first expects, and they end up extending her stay. Strike's personal life is complicated. He has just split from his long term partner and fiancée, Charlotte Campbell, who immediately marries another man. He is closest to his half-sister Lucy (his mother's second child), with whom  he grew up, though he has seven other half-siblings (the other children of Rokeby) and one half-brother who is the son of his mother and her last husband Jeff Whittaker. Even his relationship with Lucy is somewhat fraught, and Strike finds himself becoming closer to Robin, who has always wanted to be a detective, than he at first feels entirely comfortable with. Near the first book's end, after solving the Landry case and before Ellacott is ready to leave for a permanent position elsewhere, Strike gives her the gift of a green silk dress she had previously  tried on at the Vashti boutique as part of their investigation. This dress is significant to both of them, though its importance is unspoken by each. Finally, the two decide that Ellacott will stay on. The second book, The Silkworm, begins around eight months after the conclusion of book one. Strike is approached by Leonora Quine with a plea to locate her husband, notorious writer Owen Quine, who has seemingly disappeared without trace. Owen, once hailed as a literary rebel, has struggled for years to recreate the success of his original novel and has fallen out of public favour. Strike  discovers that his disappearance coincides with the leak of a manuscript for his latest novel, "Bombyx Mori". The London literary community considers "Bombyx Mori" to be unpublishable: an unpleasant mix of rape, sadomasochism, torture, necrophilia and cannibalism, the hero is eventually tricked and eaten alive by various characters who are thinly veiled caricatures of people in Owen's life whom he considers responsible for the destruction of his career. The investigation soon takes a different and altogether more gruesome turn when Owen is found dead. During the investigation, Ellacott faces personal difficulties as her fiancé's mother dies, and she  must make some difficult decisions about the balance between her career and her personal life. The third novel, Career of Evil. begins with Ellacott receiving a package from a courier, which she discovers contains the severed right leg of a woman. The package is accompanied by a note quoting from the Blue Öyster Cult song "Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)", a tattoo that Strike's mother, a famous groupie and BÖC fan, had above her crotch. Because of that link, Strike told the police that he believed that the package had been sent by someone from his own  past with a grudge against him. Strike and Ellacott work out that the sender of the leg is also responsible for a number of other brutal attacks and reaches public infamy as the Shacklewell Ripper. Strike identifies four potential suspects from his past whom he believes would be capable of such crimes but, as the police want to concentrate on the one Strike believes to be least likely, they set out to investigate the other three. Ellacott informs Strike that she dropped out of university due to trauma from being raped, and the Shacklewell Ripper then stalks and seriously injures  Ellacott in an attack. Later, Ellacott makes a decision while investigating one of their suspects that has profound and shocking consequences for their relationship, as Strike fires her and she then heads off to marry her fiancé Matthew. Strike sets a successful trap to catch the Shacklewell Ripper and drives all night to arrive at Ellacott's wedding ceremony at the end of the novel. The fourth novel, Lethal White, begins right at that point, as Ellacott learns about Strike's capture of the Ripper and that Matthew had deleted Strike's messages to her, which immediately strains their marriage . Ellacott accepts Strike's offer of a salaried partnership in the agency, which becomes very busy due to Strike's new-found fame, but she continues to struggle with PTSD from the rape and the attack by the Ripper. A year later, the agency is hired by a government minister to investigate and stop an attempted blackmail against him, although he will not tell Strike or Ellacott the details of his actions. They find evidence of embezzlement against one of the blackmailers, but then their client dies in an apparent suicide. One of his children then hires Strike to investigate  the death, because she believes her stepmother was behind it. Ellacott finds Matthew cheating on her and leaves him, temporarily going to live with her friend detective Vanessa Ekwensi. When Strike figures out the motive for the murder, he and Ellacott take their evidence to the police. While reviewing the state of the case at Scotland Yard, the murderer lures Ellacott into a trap by posing as the now-estranged Matthew. Ellacott successfully stalls the murderer long enough for Strike and the police to realize the situation and intervene. Ellacott moves in with Strike's friends Nick and Ilsa before  moving in permanently with a friend of Ilsa's. The fifth novel begins in August 2013 and ends on 9 October 2014. While visiting his dying aunt Joan, Strike is approached by Anna Phipps, who wants to hire his firm to investigate the disappearance of her mother, Margot Bamborough, a general practitioner in London, almost 40 years previously. As a result of their previous successes, Strike and Ellacott (still a salaried partner) now employ three contract investigators and an office manager. Both are dealing with their own irritations: Strike over his aunt's illness, suicide threats from his ex-fiancée  Campbell (now a married mother of two) and the attempts of his half-siblings to get him to attend a party honouring his rock star biological father Johnny Rokeby; Ellacott over Matthew's intransigence in their divorce, her continuing PTSD and her unsettled personal life, brought into clearer focus by her brother and his wife having their first child. The police's principal suspect in the disappearance was a then unidentified serial killer named Dennis Creed, now incarcerated in Broadmoor. Phipps gives the agency a one-year contract to go over the case. However, thanks to the large workload at  the small firm, it takes several months for them to run down the surviving witnesses and investigators (or their children). During the year, Strike's aunt dies, Matthew grants Ellacott the divorce because his mistress/girlfriend becomes pregnant, and the heavy work schedule combined with a lack of communication about their issues contributes to several personal misunderstandings and disagreements, including the termination of one of the contractors for repeated inappropriate behaviour toward Ellacott. In August 2014, although the firm still has leads to pursue, Phipps and her wife end the contract, but Strike and Ellacott continue to investigate. They abruptly  achieve several minor breakthroughs whilst also securing an interview with Creed. Strike induces him to confess to one of the last unsolved murders he was long suspected of, before revealing he has already deduced the identity of Bamborough's real killer. Having tipped off the police about Creed's victim, Ellacott locates and uncovers Bamborough's remains, whilst Strike apprehends her killer. The agency's investigation thus solves two cold cases, and after the partners shelter from the ensuing media storm, they celebrate Ellacott's 30th birthday together. Television adaptation. In December 2014, it was announced that the novel series  would be adapted for television by the BBC. In September 2016, Tom Burke was confirmed as having been cast as Cormoran Strike. Holliday Grainger was cast as Robin Ellacott later in November. Filming of seven hour-long episodes of the "Cormoran Strike" television series began in November 2016. The series was picked up by HBO for distribution in the United States and Canada, It premiered on 27 August 2017 on BBC.