J.K. Rowling’s next book is a sequel to The Cuckoo’s Calling titled The Silkworm. Today, the first two chapters were released online.

The first two chapters of The Silkworm were uploaded to Robert Galbraith’s website as a PDF file which you can view or download here.

The Silkworm finds Cormoran Strike investigating a new case in which an author has been murdered. “When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days – as he has done before – and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home,” the official synopsis says.

“But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives – so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.”

The first two chapters of The Silkworm make references to phone-hacking – a topic that J.K. Rowling has testified on in recent years following the News of the World’s phone-hacking scandal.

What do you think of ‘The Silkworm’s’ first two chapters?

The book will be published June 19 around the world.

As many readers have noted, Amazon is purposely not stocking The Silkworm at this time due to a fight they’re having with book publisher Hachette. To grab the book, you’ll have to visit another retailer like Barnes & Noble.

Or, you could benefit society by purchasing the book from an independent book store.

We were big fans of The Cuckoo’s Calling and are very much looking forward to reading The Silkworm later this month.

Rowling infamously published The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith last year. It took a couple of months before word leaked that it was actually the Harry Potter writer who penned the mystery novel.