Robert Galbraith - The Cuckoo's Calling

“Strike,” he said clearly. “My name’s Cormoran Strike.”

“Oh, I do apologize… this way…”

As Strike limped after the doctor, a phrase floated up out of his subconscious, a phrase he had read long before he had seen his first dead body, or marveled at a waterfall in an African mountainside, or watched the face of a killer collapsing as he realized he was caught.

I am become a name.

“On to the table, please, and take off the prosthesis.”

Where had it come from, that phrase? Strike lay back on the table and frowned up at the ceiling, ignoring the consultant now bending over the remainder of his leg, muttering as he stared and gently prodded.

It took minutes to dredge up the lines Strike had learned so long ago.

ROBERT GALBRAITH spent several years with the Royal Military Police before being attached to the SIB (Special Investigative Branch), the plainclothes branch of the RMP. He left the military in 2003 and has been working since then in the civilian security industry. The idea for Cormoran Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who returned to the civilian world. “Robert Galbraith” is a pseudonym.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2013 by Robert Galbraith

Cover design by Mario J. Pulice; photograph © Robert Daly / Getty Images

Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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First ebook edition: April 2013

Originally published in Great Britain by Sphere, April 2013

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ISBN: 978-0-316-20686-0