Mark Billingham said "One of the most unique and compelling detectives I've come across in years", Alex Gray described the novel as "one of the best crime novels I've ever read", and Val McDermid said it reminded her "why I fell in love with crime fiction in the first place". But when The Cuckoo's Calling was first published, none of them knew that its author was not what he seemed. When it was revealed that Robert Galbraith was a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling, one of the world's most successful and beloved authors, there was a media storm and Rowling's assured, superb crime debut rocketed up the charts. This year the book's compelling detective, Cormoran Strike returns in The Silkworm. In this exclusive appearance Rowling talked about turning to crime with the Galbraith books with early fan Val McDermid.
Val started off the evening by revealing that she had wanted debut novelist Robert Galbraith for the New Blood panel at the Festival last year and introduced J.K. Rowling as the 2007 runner-up for the person of the year. Rowling was wearing a fetching grey suit and pink tie with skyscraper heels and Val asked her about her middle name, Kathleen, and whether this had been the influence for her pseudonym as Bob in Blackadder is really Kate. Rowling revealed that she used the pseudonym to get the book published under the merits of the book and she wanted to keep it going long enough to establish a series; she wanted to do something just for her and while it lasted it was a lot of fun. When she saw what Val had written about it, she was jumping up and down in the kitchen and wrote a thank-you letter as Robert, but a month later, wrote one as J.K. The economist J.K. Galbraith, Robert is her favourite man's name and Robert Kennedy her political hero; since childhood she has loved the name Galbraith.
Rowling revealed that she chose crime because she loves it. reads a lot of it and thinks that the Harry Potter novels are whodunnits and why. She read Ruth Rendell in her teens and loves Christie, Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke, Peter Whimsy of the Harriet Vane mysteries, Mark Billingham and P.D. James. J.K. had read very little fantasy and joked that you are never the murderer if you have long thin fingers and alluded to The Moving Finger by Christie, who she feels was on the run from the tax man and never given credit for her humour.
When asked about her character Strike, J.K. said that forensic teams prefer a police officer, but his military brains and trust led to him going the security route. In regards to his amputation, hopes it is not choke syndrome, this is his reality of living with disability which is close to her heart with her Mum's history (sometimes a wheelchair, sometimes a stick) but in Cuckoo's Calling she could use this. Strike gets angry and frustrated by it, but deals with the day to day difficulty of it. It was also a chance to deal with her fame in the guise of the world of books in The Silkworm, her new novel. Her next book is quite different and you find out more about what happens to people after they leave the military. She has some good research to go onto the next book; the story arc is planned for more than seven books. Her process when she starts a book is to plot (she had the plot for The Silkworm before Cuckoo's Calling, as she wanted to introduce Strike in a less complex story, and it is the most complex plot she has ever written; she has been working on the plot for six years as there is a revelation in chapter 48 that was the kernel of the idea and worked it out from that). She plans a lot (a vast plot) and researches. The third Strike book is the best planned book she has ever written and it has a colour-coded spread sheet. She sets a working day, not a set number of words. Val sets 1500-2000 words a day and 5-10k words a day in a row. J.K. researches before the book, writes it and researches if needed as goes along.
Rowling's publisher never got to take her out for lunch as didn't know who it was, only the editor did. Researched loads of forensics, insects in bodies etc., and has now got good contacts in the Met, Mystic Bob, so a degree of insight into forensics through them. She reveals that there is a point in the book where you hate it, so she recommends you take a day off then go back and read it and start again. In the last third of the book, starts thinking about the next book and it is always more attractive. She is half-way through the third and just started plotting the fourth as a carrot. She is also working on a script for Fantastic Beasts and where to find them and a couple of Strike's. Warner Brothers wanted to do a film on Fantastic Beasts so she started writing it and found it fun/challenging/fascinating but her first love is novels. She feels that if being a novelist had not worked, she would have been a psychologist and teaching because she was broke and had a daughter, but really wanted to be a writer. She had to justify chasing this dream when she had someone wholly dependent on her.
Val said that she loves Robin, as do most readers, and if you let her marry Matthew they are all going to be very, very cross. J.K. feels that she is the first extremely lovable character she has written, including Harry Potter, as she is good, smart and kind (Forster said: Only a writer with a sense of evil can make goodness readable). We will find out the answer to this question in book three. She wanted to make a detective with a female side-kick as physicality is important as harder to cope with disability but there is genuine friendship and awareness of attractiveness. Strike can charm people and it gets him in places, but in the third book Robin gets to do a few things it wouldn't be possible for him to do alone.
Rowling revealed that in her research for the book she was in a café and a builder came in and said that someone had said that J.K. was in there but then announced that he didn't know what she looked like, so she breathed a huge sigh of relief. In Cuckoo's Calling she invented more locations, but Silkworm is real locations and she loves London and wants to get out in the real world.
When Val asked what it is with the Latin, she said that she did Classics at University and in the Strike books it is a clue to what he was studying, backstory there. Robert Galbraith came first but knew wanted to write crime. She feels that Strike is not her, yes he is the central character but he has different politics and treats people in a way she would never and she would never want to go work for the News of the World.
The evening ended with J.K. Rowling signing her Cormoran Strike books as her pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
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