英语听力精选进阶版 14244

（单词翻译）

Book author mystery

Summary

15 July 2013

It's been revealed that the Harry¹ Potter author, JK Rowling, has secretly written a crime novel under a false male name. "The Cuckoo's Calling" was published in April and is about a war veteran turned private investigator².

Reporter:

Martin Vennard

Report

It was something of a literary mystery. How was Robert Galbraith, a former military policeman, able to produce such an assured debut³ novel? 

Extract from the book:

The face was crushed and swollen⁴, one eye reduced to a pucker⁵, the other showing as a sliver⁶ of dull white between distended⁷ lids. When the sequinned top she wore glittered in slight changes of light, it gave a disquieting⁸ impression of movement, as though she breathed again.

And now it turns out that Robert Galbraith is actually the nom de plume⁹ of none other than JK Rowling. The secret was only discovered when Britain's Sunday Times newspaper realised that Galbraith and Rowling shared the same agent and editor. Computer analysis showed they used similar phrases and styles. 

It was also not the first time Rowling had hidden her gender¹⁰, having chosen to be called JK rather than Joanne when she was first published. 

Rowling confessed. In mitigation, she said she wanted to know how her book would be received without her name and that she had found it a liberating¹¹ experience. 

The book had sold fifteen hundred copies before Sunday, and now the mystery has been solved it is number one in the Amazon best seller list.