J.K. Rowling has confessed to writing a mystery novel under the pseudonym “Robert Galbraith. Mulholland Books published The Cuckoo’s Calling in April, attributing the book to Galbraith.
You can sample The Cuckoo’s Calling at this link. Little, Brown publisher Reagan Arthur issued this statement:
We are pleased and proud to have published THE CUCKOO’S CALLING, and we’re delighted by the response it has received from readers, reviewers and fellow writers. We are really looking forward to publishing the second book in the Strike series next summer … A reprint of the book is under way and will carry a revised author biography, which reads “Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling.”
Here is the biography attributed to Galbraith:
After several years with the Royal Military Police, Robert Galbraith was attached to the SIB (Special Investigative Branch), the plain-clothes branch of the RMP. He left the military in 2003 and has been working since then in the civilian security industry. The idea for Cormoran Strike grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who returned to the civilian world. ‘Robert Galbraith’ is a pseudonym.
The Harry Potter author admitted to using the pseudonym in a Telegraph article:
I had hoped to keep this secret a little longer because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience. It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.