Jk Rowling makes a less than subtle reference to the phone hacking scandal in her new crime thriller The Silkworm. Writing under her pen name Robert Galbraith, Rowling appears to draw upon her own experiences of giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry after suffering press intrusion.

The Cuckoos CallingJK Rowling's 'The Cuckoos Calling' [Photo: Getty images, credit: Jordan Mansfield]

The Silkworm follows private detective Cormoran Strike supplying details to a journalist of a scandalous affair between a member of the House of Lords and his secretary. During one passage, the hack asks Strike how he persuaded the woman to speak with him.

"I listened," he replies, prompting the reporter to reply, "All the other private dicks I use spend their time hacking phone messages." Strike warns that phone-hacking is "illegal".

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The new book, set for June 19, follows Strike as he hunts down the killer of murdered novelist Oscar Quine. He soon discovers a manuscript in which several of Quine's associated are portrayed rather unflatteringly to the extent that their lives would have been destroyed had the work been published - a clear motive.

Rowling's first Galbraith novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, was published last year to critical acclaim though her real identity was revealed shortly after, when her confidentiality was breached by her solicitor. Unsurprisingly, The Cuckoo's Calling shot up the book charts after news of the betrayal and the British writer accepted a substantial donation to charity from the solicitor's firm as an apology. 

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