
Private detective Cormoran Strike tackles his first cold case - a 40-year-old disappearance. Stephen King called J.K. Rowling "a wonderful storyteller," as this 944-page British Book Award winner doubled its predecessor's sales despite sparking heated cultural debates about its controversial villain.
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In the rain-soaked streets of 1974 London, Dr. Margot Bamborough walked out of her medical practice and disappeared without a trace. Forty years later, her daughter Anna approaches private detective Cormoran Strike with a seemingly impossible request: solve her mother's disappearance within one year. The case that defeated the original investigators-including Detective Bill Talbot, who suffered a mental breakdown obsessing over occult connections-now lands on Strike's desk as he juggles visiting his dying aunt in Cornwall and managing his thriving detective agency with partner Robin Ellacott. What makes this cold trail worth following? Blood found in unlikely places, witnesses with contradictory stories, and the shadow of notorious serial killer Dennis Creed all suggest Margot's disappearance holds secrets worth killing to protect. As Strike and Robin begin reconstructing Margot's final day, they discover a medical practice filled with complex relationships, resentments, and possibly deadly secrets.
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