The Silkworm (by Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling)

I parceled this book out to myself 20 minutes at a time at the gym, so it was an unusual reading experience in that way! If I hadn't done that, I'd probably have torn through it in a day like I did with the previous one.

This is the second mystery novel in the series, and I knew I wanted to read it as soon as I finished The Cuckoo's Calling. It's the story of a writer who has disappeared, and a cast of people (including his agent, a rival writer, his wife, and his mistress) who knew him and may know more than they let on about his disappearance. The private detective investigating the disappearance is Cormoran Strike, and his assistant Robin is an aspiring detective with a douchey fiance.

I love the characters of Cormoran and Robin, and the relationship between them--they clearly have some chemistry that they're both working very hard on ignoring. (Cormoran is described in many less-than-flattering ways and yet in these two books he sleeps with many attractive women including at least one literal supermodel, so no idea what we're supposed to think of that.)

Scanning the reviews at Amazon, people found this one to be slow, lots of interrogation scenes and references to the unpublished novel of the missing writer. I can totally see getting frustrated with it if you're reading it straight through. But 20 minutes at a time, I really enjoyed getting to spend more time with Cormoran and Robin, and I didn't mind the plot meanderings because I didn't want it to end.