Cormoran Strike is struggling as a private eye after losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan. Strike has only one customer left, creditors are calling, and he is now residing in his office following the breakup with his longterm partner. Then John Bristow appears at his door with a startling tale: a few months ago, his sister, the iconic supermodel Lula Landry?famously known to her friends as the Cuckoo?fell to her death. John doesn't agree with the police's determination that it was a suicide. The case introduces Strike to every type of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and illusion known to man and thrusts him into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and frantic designers.