The Cuckoo's Calling

First edition, hardback cover
Authors	Robert Galbraith
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Crime fiction
Publisher	Sphere Books (Little, Brown & Company)
Publication date	4 April 2013 (2013-04-04)
Pages	464
ISBN
Followed by	The Silkworm

The Cuckoo's Calling is a 2013 crime fiction novel by J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It is the first novel in the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels and was followed by The Silkworm in 2014 and Career of Evil in 2015.

In 2010, Cormoran Strike, a private investigator who is an ex-SIB investigator who lost part of a leg in a bombing in Afghanistan, and also is the illegitimate son of a famous rock star (by an affair with a notorious groupie), is broke, and his birth father's business agent is calling in the loan that he gave to Strike to open his office. At that point, Strike is hired by John Bristow, the adoptive brother of supermodel Lula Landry who had fallen from her balcony three months previously. Bristow wants Strike to investigate his sister's supposed suicide. Bristow's other sibling, a brother named Charlie, had been a schoolmate of Strike before his death, which came when he fell into a quarry while riding on his bicycle. Strike also meets Robin Ellacott, who has been sent to be his temporary secretary despite the fact he can barely afford her. Robin has just become engaged to her longtime boyfriend Matthew, with a wedding set for December. Although Strike only hires her for one week, she turns out to be much more competent than he expected, and they end up extending her stay.

Strike is initially skeptical about John Bristow's claims, having read extensive media coverage following the case, and he is unwilling to reopen such a thoroughly investigated case. However, because he needs the money, he proceeds with the investigation, interviewing Lula Landry's security guard, personal driver, uncle, friends and designer. Each character recounts their recollections of Lula as Strike comes to realize that the circumstances of her death are more ambiguous than he had imagined.

Strike is especially intrigued by the statement of Tansy Bestigui, Lula's downstairs neighbour, who says she heard Lula fighting with a man and then falling from her balcony. It is clear she could not have heard it from two floors below through the triple glazed windows, so her statement had initially been dismissed. However, in reality, her husband had found her with cocaine and then pushed her out onto the balcony and locked her there, where she overheard the attack on Lula Landry. Tansy did not reveal her true location to the investigating officers, because it was -10 °C outside when her husband had pushed her onto the balcony, and her husband had demanded she remain silent, as he was fearful of being arrested for abusing Tansy and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Later, Rochelle Onifade is found dead, killed hours after leaving a meeting with Strike. Strike realises that she must have been in contact with Lula's murderer, though he doubts that she knew the person to be the killer.