J.K. Rowling Puts Her Robert Galbraith Hat Back On For Novel, 'The Silkworm'

J. K. Rowling is publishing a second novel under the Robert Galbraith pseudonym, the author has announced. Rowling may have just found her niche in the crime genre. Galbraith’s second novel (Rowling’s tenth) is tentatively titled The Silkworm. It begins when a writer, Owen Quinn, is murdered after writing malicious descriptions of everyone he knows into his new manuscript. Cormoran Strike, the detective Rowling introduced in her first novel under the Galbraith pen name, is hired by Quinn’s wife to investigate the disappearance and the connection to his manuscript.

This is Rowling's second book under the pseudonym, third adult novel and the tenth book in her career.

"At first, Mrs Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days – as he has done before – and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home," runs the newly released description of The Silkworm (via The Guardian). "But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives – meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced. When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer."

Rowling has apparently embraced the publicity she received after the Robert Galbraith rouse was lifted. The bestselling Harry Potter novelist was outed as author of the first Galbraith novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, by the Sunday Times, after a partner at her solicitors told his wife's best friend of her identity. Rowling sued and received and apology and her legal costs paid, but the reveal ultimately worked in favor of the novel. The Cuckoo's Calling shot straight to the top of the bestseller lists after Rowling's identity as its author was leaked – although it had already received fulsome reviews from critics who had praised its "male" author's sensitivity to the female perspective. The release date for the follow-up is still TBA.

After the reveal, The Cuckoo's Calling quickly became an international  bestseller.