WHEN the phenomenon that was Harry Potter came to an end in July 2007, J.K. Rowling’s legion of fans were left asking themselves, what next? What would life be like without Harry Potter? They waited in the hope that Rowling would, given time, surely be back with something as magical as her debut series.

Then came The Casual Vacancy and a lot of hopes were shattered. Rowling’s first book targeted towards adults received scathing reviews (Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times, “the real-life world she has limned in these pages is so wilfully banal, so depressingly clichéd that The Casual Vacancy is not only disappointing — it’s dull.”) In face of such a reception it’s not surprising that Rowling chose to don an invisibility cloak for her next literary foray; The Cuckoo’s Calling, published in April 2013 under the name of Robert Galbraith, is a classic detective novel that will find favour with everyone who enjoys a good whodunit.

When supermodel Lula Landry plunges to her death from her penthouse flat, the police consider it an open and shut suicide. A mixed-race child adopted by a white family, Lula had a past riddled with drug abuse and mental illness; her incredible beauty and wealth brought their own burdens. Hounded by the paparazzi, stalked by admirers and surrounded by free-loaders, Lula’s death is seen as a tragic but inevitable outcome of her lifestyle. But her adopted brother is not convinced and hires a private eye to investigate.

Enter Cormoran Strike.

A down and out ex-military man, Strike is no flamboyant Sherlock or eccentric Poirot. Nor, in spite of his dysfunctional childhood, psychotic ex-fiancée and prosthetic leg, is he yet another caricature of the dark and brooding private eye beloved of the thriller genre. Strike battles his demons with quiet dignity and dry humour (with his prosthetic leg lying unattached and his leg stump bleeding, Strike wonders how he’ll deal with the murderer who is expected to show up. “I’ll just have to ... then Strike snorted a little in his empty office, because the expression that had occurred to him was ‘think on my feet’”).

His partner in crime is Robin, a pert and cheerful temporary secretary he cannot afford to hire but gradually grows more dependent on as the story progresses. Where Watson and Hastings existed basically as foils for the great detective’s genius to shine upon, Robin not only provides practical help, her presence is the one bright spot in Strike’s gloomy life. With Robin’s help Strike treads a twisting path that takes him behind the scenes of the glittering world of fashion where he meets the people who shaped Lula’s life and may have hastened her death.

It is only to be expected from an author who gave us the wonderfully ambiguous Snape to go beyond the superficiality of the world she is portraying. Lula’s marketing savvy, gay designer Guy Some, and her much maligned drug addict boyfriend Evan Duffield, both reveal a vulnerable core under a tough and cynical exterior. Lula’s rapacious birth mother may arouse disgust but she also stirs our pity as does her friend Rochelle who clearly knows something about the events of the day Lula died but is not talking.

Those who confuse a whodunit for a thriller will be bored by the pace, which is slow even by the standards of a classic detective novel. The interviews with suspects are drawn out in what sometimes feels like unnecessary detail — the one with Duffield especially so — and while each session adds a small but significant detail to the puzzle, the reader’s patience is bound to be tested.

However, the true mystery aficionado will be rewarded with a trail of breadcrumbs (a broken vase and a missing piece of paper on which Lula scribbled something hours before her death are some of the obvious clues) as Rowling works up to the climax that will surprise even the most jaded armchair detective.

There’s no denying that once Rowling’s name made it to the cover, the book went from selling a few hundred copies to number one on the bestseller list. But even under the cloak of anonymity the novel garnered relatively positive feedback with Publisher’s Weekly lauding it as a “stellar debut” while The Guardian found it to be an “enjoyable, highly professional crime novel”.

So, what resemblance, if any, to the glorious Harry Potter is a question at the back of the mind of every reader who picks up a copy. While one may not expect any common ground between wizards and a murder mystery, according to Rowling herself, “at its heart every Harry Potter book was a whodunit.”

That said, everyone will recognise the themes close to Rowling’s heart; like muggle-borns tread a fine line between two worlds in Potter, so the “bronze-skinned” Lula faced the dilemmas that came with, in the words of her chauffeur, “growing up black in a white family.” The trademark Rowling humour shines through: “Hope so briefly re-erected at the news that he might have a client, fell slowly forwards like a granite tombstone and landed with an agonising blow in Strike’s gut”; and even minor characters, such as the security guard, are well fleshed-out.

It seems safe to predict that after wizards, Rowling has found her new forte. It would seem she agrees as the second novel in the series has already been written and will be published next year. Will Cormoran meet with the same success as Harry Potter? With Rowling’s magic touch, lightning may just Strike twice.

The reviewer is a Dawn staffer

The Cuckoo’s Calling (MYSTERY) By Robert Galbraith Mulholland Books, UK ISBN 978-0316206846 464pp.