The Running Grave by JK Rowling to be set in Norfolk

The Harry Potter author is planning to publish the next installment in her Cormoran Strike detective series, titled The Running Grave, on September 26.

The book’s just-released cover pictures Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott in front of one of the sheltered benches on Cromer Pier beneath an inky sky.  

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JK Rowling, who writes her Cormoran Strike detective series under the pen name Robert Galbraith (Image: PA)

Rowling’s Strike novels are published under the pen-name Robert Galbraith. 

Alan Tutt, from Cromer Museum, said Rowling paid the museum a visit last year, apparently while researching locations for the book.

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Mr Tutt said: “She came into the shop and bought some books about Cromer. She didn’t actually go around the museum.

"One of the colleagues here noticed the new book cover - those huts on the pier are very old and distinctive so it’s obvious the photo must have been taken here.” 

Alan Tutt and Anna Craneat Cromer Museum, one of the sites JK Rowling visited as part of her research for The Running Grave (Image: Stuart Anderson)

A synopsis of The Running Grave has surfaced online.  

In the story, Strike and Robin must rescue a man ensnared in the trap of a dangerous cult.

“Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside,” the synopsis reads.  

The front cover of The Running Grave features Cromer Pier (Image: Mulholland Books)

“The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

“In order to try to rescue Will, Strike’s business partner, Robin Ellacott, decides to infiltrate the cult, and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito among its members.

"But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her.”

Alymerton church, another setting in The Running Grave (Image: Newsquest)

Fan website strikefans.com noted Rowling changed her Twitter header photo to show several Cromer scenes last year.

Rowling also tweeted images of Aylmerton church - near Sheringham - and a nearby country lane called the Lion’s Mouth, presumably also settings in the new book. 

It may well mean film crews will soon be heading to north Norfolk - each of the Strike novels is being made into a BBC television series as they are written.

Tom Burke as Cormoran Strike and Holliday Grainger as Robin Ellacott a BBC TV adaption of a previous Strike novel. Presumably, they will soon be sampling Cromer's fish and chips. (Image: Sam Taylor/BBC/Bronte Film & TV)