Novelist Owen Quine has gone missing, and though at first his wife Leonora thought he had gone off to be by himself, she has now come to Cormoran Strike. The private eye learns that Quine wrote a manuscript revealing poisonous secrets about almost everyone he knows—and there are lots of influential people who might want him silenced. When Quine is found murdered in a bizarre fashion, Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott race to unravel the motivations of a ruthless killer unlike any they've ever encountered, in this second book in the series. When the series debuted in 2013, few people knew that the real author was J.K. Rowling, and her thrillers have inspired the BBC/HBO Cinemax series C.B. Strike.