British author J.K. Rowling, famous for her seven-book Harry Potter series, was on Sunday unmasked as the writer of a crime thriller published in April under a male pseudonym. The Cuckoo’s Calling, about a war veteran-turned-private investigator called Cormoran Strike, was released by the Little, Brown publishing group in April.
It was attributed to 45-year-old Robert Galbraith, but the publisher acknowledged from beginning that the name was a pseudonym. The author’s biography described Galbraith as married with two sons. He was given a career with the Royal Military Police, but was said to have left the military in 2003.
“The idea for protagonist Cormoran Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who have returned to the civilian world,” the biography said. Rowling’s secret was rumbled by the Sunday Times after it investigated how a first-time novelist could produce such an assured debut work.
Rowling admitted she was the writer in a statement. “I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience. It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name,” she said. The book which is part of Little, Brown, shared publisher and editor with Rowling and this triggered suspicion of the newspaper.