J.K. Rowling to Publish ‘Cuckoo’s Calling’ Sequel Under Pseudonym

Robert Galbraith is back.

The pseudonym of J.K. Rowling will be listed as the author of The Silkworm, publisher Little, Brown and Company announced Monday. The murder-mystery novel will be the second title that the Harry Potter scribe attributes to her pen name.

PHOTOS: Harry Potter at the Box Office

The Silkworm returns to the adventures of private investigator Cormoran Strike, introduced in the first novel Rowling wrote as Galbraith, The Cuckoo’s Calling. According to the synopsis, novelist Owen Quine goes missing, and his wife calls in the detective, who discovers that her husband has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen portraits of almost everyone he knows. Quine is then discovered dead, and the tale turns into a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer.

Rowling, who released The Cuckoo’s Calling in 2013, was outed as Galbraith by a quickly deleted tweet with ties to a law firm that reps the author. The lawyer has been fined for breaching client confidentiality rules.

“A tiny number of people knew my pseudonym, and it has not been pleasant to wonder for days how a woman whom I had never heard of prior to Sunday night could have found out something that many of my oldest friends did not know,” she said in a statement at the time. “To say that I am disappointed is an understatement.”

STORY: J.K. Rowling’s Secret Novel: 4 Fun Things to Know

Rowling has also published The Casual Vacancy and is serving as co-producer of a Harry Potter prequel play.

The Silkworm will be published June 19 in Britain and June 24 in the U.S.

Email: Ashley.Lee@THR.com
Twitter: @cashleelee

a six-year difference between us, and when I’m 19, he’s 13, and that’s the age that he really needs his older brother. And I was selfishly trying to pursue the acting thing on the other side of the country. [He was] growing up in the shadow of his older brother — not being his own person in a way — [with] everybody looking at him: ‘Oh, that’s Mike’s little brother.’ I guess you just have to accept it.”

“]