Today is J.K. Rowling’s birthday, so it’s a good opportunity to write about her wonderful detective fiction, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. I just finished the fourth book, Lethal White. These are really good reads. Rowling has created two characters: Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott who are so compelling and human that you want to keep going to see how things work out. The plots come out of the sadness and despair of our times, and do so in way that makes you think of even the vilest criminal with some sympathy. I think that is a good way to function. It doesn’t change the need to enforce criminality and incarcerate the offenders. But if we don’t think about everyone as part of our shared humanity, we fail at every level.

The four Robert Galbraith novels are: Cuckoo’s Calling (2013) The Silkworm (2014) Career of Evil (2015) Lethal White (2018)