Career of Evil

Career of Evil is a crime novel by the British writer J. K. Rowling, published on 20 October 2015 under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. It is the third novel in the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels.

Robin Ellacott has worked for Strike for a year and is now a full-time investigator as well as his secretary. Strike has begun a relationship with the radio presenter Elin, while still carrying feelings for Robin, whose fiance Matthew disapproves of the work she does. The story opens with a murder, after which an unidentified man begins to stalk Robin as part of a plan to take revenge on Strike. A package arrives at the office containing a woman's severed leg and a message that quotes a Blue Oyster Cult song, and Strike recognises it as one his mother Leda used to like, which sends him back through his own history to work out who could have sent it. As he narrows the possibilities, the person sending the packages stays close to Robin.

The Strike novels pair a private detective's caseload with the long-running relationship between the two people who run the agency, and this is the book in which Robin moves from the office into the investigation itself. The two earlier novels about the pair had appeared under the same pseudonym, and four further ones followed, including Lethal White in 2018 and Troubled Blood in 2020.