What is the name of the private detective in J.K. Rowling’s Strike novels?

Cormoran Strike is the private detective in J.K. Rowling’s Strike novels.

Strike first appears in The Cuckoo’s Calling, published in 2013 under Rowling’s pseudonym Robert Galbraith. He is a former military investigator who establishes a private detective agency in London after leaving the army. His investigations often draw on his contacts, persistence, and ability to interpret complicated evidence.

Robin Ellacott becomes an important colleague and later a central figure in the series. Their professional relationship develops across multiple cases, and the books combine murder investigations with continuing character storylines.

Readers sometimes mistake Strike for a police detective, but he works as a private investigator. The series is also separate from Harry Potter: it is contemporary crime fiction for adults, with realistic settings and investigations rather than magic. Several books in the series have been adapted for television as Strike.