JK Rowling To Release New Non-Harry Potter Novel ‘The Silkworm’ Under Penname Robert Galbraith

JK Rowling is returning with a new novel. Writing as Robert Galbraith, the “Harry Potter” author is set to publish “The Silkworm,” the follow-up to the surprise hit “The Cuckoo’s Calling,” on June 24.

“The Silkworm” features Cormoran Strike, the ex-military policeman who was the hero of Galbraith’s first novel, and his assistant Robin Ellacott in another case involving a missing writer.

“When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days – as he has done before – and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home,” the book’s description reads.

“But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives – so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.

“And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before...”

“The Silkworm,” which will be published on June 24 in the U.S. by Little, Brown publishing, is Rowling’s third non-“Harry Potter” book. The first one was the tragicomedy “The Casual Vacancy,” which was released under her name in 2012.

In 2013, she released “The Cuckoo’s Calling” under her penname, Robert Galbraith. Although it garnered positive critical reviews, it flew under the radar during its first months of release until it was revealed that Galbraith was actually Rowling.

Sales for “The Cuckoo’s Calling” then shot up to 157% on Amazon after the revelation.

“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,” Rowling had told The Sunday Times in July.