Characters in The Silkworm

Cormoran Strike

Navigating a murder that doubles as a literary statement, Strike's investigation requires him to read a deeply unpleasant manuscript and understand the world of publishing jealousy it documents.

Also in The Cuckoo's Calling, Career of Evil, Lethal White, Troubled Blood, The Ink Black Heart, The Running Grave, The Hallmarked Man

Robin Ellacott

Taking on more active investigative responsibilities as her professional instincts sharpen and her ambitions begin to outgrow the administrative role she was originally hired for.

Also in The Cuckoo's Calling, Career of Evil, Lethal White, Troubled Blood, The Ink Black Heart, The Running Grave, The Hallmarked Man

Owen Quine

The missing novelist whose unpublished satire of the literary world becomes the map to his killer — present throughout the novel through his manuscript and the reactions it provokes.

Leonora Quine

Owen's long-suffering wife, whose practical, unsentimental grief makes her one of the novel's most sympathetically drawn figures.

Daniel Chard

Owen Quine's publisher, unflatteringly portrayed in Quine's manuscript and drawn into Strike's investigation as a suspect.

Michael Fancourt

A celebrated novelist and Owen Quine's former friend turned literary rival, whose falling-out with Quine gives him a place among the suspects Strike investigates.

Matthew Cunliffe

Also in The Cuckoo's Calling, Career of Evil, Lethal White

Christian Fischer

Jerry Waldegrave

Jonny Rokeby

Also in The Cuckoo's Calling

Charlotte Campbell

Also in The Cuckoo's Calling

Detective Inspector Richard Anstis

Alexander Rokeby

Orlando Quine

Dominic Culpepper

Also in Career of Evil

Kathryn Kent

Owen Quine's lover and an aspiring writer, who becomes a figure in Strike's inquiry into his disappearance.

Pippa Midgley

A young aspiring writer and former student of Owen Quine who lives with Kathryn Kent.