Revealed: 'Harry Potter' Author Secretly Wrote Crime Novel Under Male Pseudonym

The mega-famous author of the "Harry Potter" series has been revealed as the pseudonymous male writer of a newly-published, critically acclaimed crime novel.

AP

J.K. Rowling used the name Robert Galbraith to write "The Cuckoo’s Calling," according to the U.K. Sunday Times.

“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 said, according to The Telegraph.

Image source: Amazon

The book, published in April, centers on a private detective who lost a leg in Afghanistan and takes up the case of a famous model who fell to her death. The description reads: "You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this."

"In a rare feat, the pseudonymous Galbraith combines a complex and compelling sleuth and an equally well-formed and unlikely assistant with a baffling crime in his stellar debut," Publishers Weekly raved earlier this year.

"Galbraith" came complete with a fictitious biography: a former Royal Military Police officer who took up private security. "The idea...grew directly out of his own experiences and those of his military friends who returned to the civilian world."

But there were similarities between Rowling and "The Cuckoo’s Calling" author: both shared the same publisher and editor. The Sunday Times took up an investigation into how "a first-time author 'with a background in the army and the civilian security industry' could write such an assured debut novel."

The BBC reported the book had sold 1,500 copies since publication, but sales on Amazon were up 500,000 percent since Rowling's announcement.

Rowling published her first post-"Harry Potter" novel, "A Casual Vacancy," last year.

At least one "Cuckoo’s Calling" reader appears to have some serious bragging rights, with an online review posted just last week.

"This book is so well written that I suspect that some years down the road we will hear the author's name is a pseudonym of some famous writer," Amazon reviewer karen wrote.

A second Galbraith novel is due to be published next year.

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