Who is the fictional detective at the center of J.K. Rowling’s Strike series?

Cormoran Strike is the fictional detective at the center of J.K. Rowling’s Strike series.

The novels are published under Rowling’s pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Strike is a private investigator and former Special Investigation Branch investigator in the Royal Military Police. He operates in London and often works with Robin Ellacott, who becomes his business partner and a major character in the series.

The first book, The Cuckoo’s Calling, introduces Strike as he investigates the death of model Lula Landry. Subsequent novels develop both individual cases and the long-running professional and personal relationship between Strike and Robin.

Strike is sometimes mistaken for a character from another crime-fiction series because his books share the classic private-investigator format. He is not Harry Potter in an adult setting, and the Strike novels contain no wizarding-world continuity. They belong to Rowling’s separate contemporary crime-fiction project.