While at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival J.K. Rowling revealed that she plans to write at least seven Cormoran Strike novels under her pseudonym Robert Gaibraith. The first two, The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm have already been released and Rowling stated that she is halfway through the third novel and is starting the plot for the fourth. Some quotes from Rowling at the event may be read below:

“The next book is quite different,” she said. “You find out quite a bit more about what happens to people after they leave the military.”

Asked whether it was true that she would write a total of seven novels under the Galbraith name, Rowling replied: “It’s not seven. It’s more. It’s pretty open ended. I really love writing these books, so I don’t know that I’ve got an end point in mind. One of the things I absolutely love about this genre is that, unlike Harry, where there was an overarching story, a beginning and an end, you’re talking about discrete stories. So while a detective lives, you can keep giving him cases.”

Asked why she chose to write crime stories after the Harry Potter series, she replied: “I love crime fiction. I’ve always loved it. I read a lot of it and I think, in many ways, that the Harry Potter books are whodunnits in disguise. I enjoy, I suppose, the ‘golden age’ book. That’s very much what I was trying to do in these books – to take that finite number of suspects, the genuine whodunnit style, but make it very contemporary, bring it up to date, and make sure this is a credible person with a credible back story for nowadays.”

She also quickly mentioned the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them script, which she is still working on: “It’s been challenging, it’s been fascinating, it has been a lot of fun. But as fun as it’s been, my first love is definitely novels.”