published: 2014
plot: When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. 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. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. 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...
what I liked: Everything! The detailed descriptions created vivid images in my head, I constantly felt as if I'm following Cormoran Strike around through a slightly sinister but always realistic London.
what I didn't like: OK, towards the climax (that is a little bit anti-climatic) I sometimes struggled a little bit to keep up with every characters action and motivation.
verdict: Another unusual statement for someone who doesn't normally read crime novels at all - I loved it as much as Strike's first case! Knowing pretty much every corner of London that gets described in the book I was hooked after the first few pages.
PS: On the day I read the bit where Strike discovers a badly mutilated body in a house in Hammersmith I happenend to walk around Hammersmith...alone...in dusk...and scared myself with wondering what lies behind each and every wall I was passing...I'm not made for tougher crime novels I think ;-)
Haha, you are describing one of the reasons why I'm not too fond of crime novels either. My Imagination just starts to run wild ;)
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