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

Cormoran Strike is the private detective at the center of J.K. Rowling’s crime series written as Robert Galbraith. He first appears in The Cuckoo’s Calling, published in 2013.

Strike is a former military investigator who becomes a private detective in London. The character is physically imposing and has lost part of one leg, an injury connected with his service in Afghanistan. His investigations often combine conventional detective work with interviews, surveillance and careful reconstruction of a victim’s relationships.

Robin Ellacott becomes Strike’s secretary and then an increasingly skilled investigative partner. Their professional relationship is one of the series’ continuing storylines. Readers sometimes confuse Strike with detectives from other modern crime franchises, such as Harry Hole or Jack Reacher; those characters were created by Jo Nesbø and Lee Child. Strike belongs specifically to Rowling’s Galbraith novels and their television adaptation, Strike.