Here is a list of all the real-life people and events mentioned in The Cuckoo’s Calling. The main events of the book take place in 2010.
George Hatherill
George Hatherill was the founder of the Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police. Strike uses the name Hatherill for his computer password (Part 1, Chapter 2)
Dana Gibson
Robin reads a news article about Lula Landry, “… beautiful girls have been helping to shift newspapers ever since Dana Gibson cross-hatched lazy-lidded sirens for the New Yorker.” (Part 2, Chapter 1). Charles Dana Gibson was an American illustrator who created the iconic character Gibson Girl that represented American women at the turn of the 20th century.
Emmeline Pankhurst
Robin continues to read the news article to Strike in the office: “‘A hundred years after Emmeline Pankhurst, a generation of pubescent females seeks nothing better than to be reduced to the status of a cut-out paper doll, a flat avatar whose fictionalised adventures mask such disturbance and distress that she threw herself from a third-story window'” (Part 2, Chapter 1). Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist who organised the British suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote in 1918.
Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He is mentioned a few times in The Cuckoo’s Calling, either by name or as Prime Minister.
First, when Strike arrives at the Phoenix Cafe, Derrick Wilson closes a copy of the Sun newspaper which bears a picture of Gordon Brown looking baggy-eyed and exhausted (Part 2, Chapter 6).
The Chilcot Inquiry and the Prime Minister’s performance is mentioned as being covered on the Army Rumour Service website (arrse.co.uk) which Strike visits (Part 2, Chapter 8). The Chilcot Inquiry, or the Iraq Inquiry, was a public inquiry into the nation’s role in the Iraq War, announced in 2009 by Gordon Brow and published in 2016.
The Daily Mail published a front page article on the Prime Minister’s gaffe in calling an elderly female voter ‘bigoted woman’ without realising that his microphone was still turned on. Strike reads an abandoned copy of this newspaper in a café after scouting the streets around the Barrack nightclub (Part 2, Chapter 10). This is a slight mistake in timelines. In the book, if our timeline is correct, this is on the 5th April, 2010, but the ‘bigoted woman’ incident didn’t happen in real life until 28th April, 2010.
“The country was lumbering towards election day. Strike turned in early on Sunday and watched the day’s gaffes, counterclaims and promises being tabulated on his portable TV. There was an air of joylessness in every news report he watched. The national debt was so huge that is was difficult to comprehend. Cuts were coming, whoever won; deep, painful cuts; and sometimes, with their weasel words, the party leaders reminded Strike of the surgeons who had told him cautiously that he might experience a degree of discomfort; they who would never personally feel the pain that was about to be inflicted.” (Part 4, Chapter 4). National election day was on 6th May, 2010, it resulted in a hung parliament with David Cameron as leader and the formation of the coalition government with the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats (leader: Nick Clegg).
On his way to the morgue to identify Rochelle Onifade’s body, Strike’s taxi driver is determined to tell him why Gordon Brown was a “fucking disgrace.” Strike sits in silence for the entire trip (Part 4, Chapter 10).
1966 “they think it’s all over”
This is a quote from Kenneth Wolstnholm’s BBC TV commentary in the closing moments of the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, when England beat West Germany 4-2 after extra time. After this victory the quote became a widely used expression. Derrick Wilson tells Strike that he instructed the repairman to set the alarm to Deeby Macc’s flat to 1966, like the front door (Part 4, Chapter 3).
Tom Waits
Tom Waits is Cormoran Strike’s favourite musician. He plays a Tom Waits album in the office (Part 2, Chapter 8). Tom Waits in an American artist in the genres of rock, blues and jazz and is recognisable as having a deep, gravelly voice.
Arsenal and Spurs match (3 April, 2010)
Strike watches an Arsenal vs Tottenham Hotspurs football match at 3pm (Part 2, Chapter 8). If we’ve gotten the timeline correct, there were no Arsenal matches with the Tottenham Hotspurs on this date. There was one on 14 April, 2010, so perhaps this is the match Strike watches. However, there was an Arsenal vs Wolverhampton Wanderers match on 3rd April.
West Bromwich Albion versus Chelsea match (Monday, 5th April 2010)
This match is on the TV when Strike enters The Feathers to meet Eric Wardle (Part 2, Chapter 10).
Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse was a British singer and songwriter who was still alive in the timeline of the book; she died in July 2011. One of her songs is playing in The Feathers when Strike goes there to meet Eric Wardle (Part 2, Chapter 10).
Raisa Gorbachev Foundation Gala
The Gorbachev Foundation ball was a high-profile annual fundraising event held in Hampton Court Palace, London, to support the fight against childhood cancer. Ursula May tells Strike that she once used makeup artist Bryony Radford for on of the Gorbachev Foundation balls (Part 2, Chapter 11).
Alfred Adler: “A lie would have no sense unless…”
Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. The famous quote by him, “A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous”, is recalled by Strike in relation to Tansy Bestigui and the lie about her whereabouts on the night of Lula Landry’s murder (Part 2, Chapter 11).
War in Afghanistan
A prolonged armed conflict between 2001 and 2021 which began with an invasion by a United States-led coalition in response to the 9/11 attacks. Derrick Wilson tells Strike his nephew is in Afghanistan (Part 2, Chapter 6). Strike himself was in Afghanistan, he tells Robin, with Met officer Richard Anstis. Strike was investigating a Killed In Action in the military police. Strike tells Robin he left because he was injured (Part 2, Chapter 11). Strike and Robin learn that Lula Landry’s biological brother, Jonah Agyeman, is serving in Afghanistan, in the Royal Engineers (Part 4, Chapter 9).
Princess Diana
Diana, Princess of Wales, was the wife of Prince Charles, future king. She died in August 1997 from injuries sustained in a car crash in Paris after the driver was fleeing the paparazzi. She is mentioned multiple times in The Cuckoo’s Calling.
She is first mentioned because Strike and John Bristow walk past her memorial fountain in Hyde Park, “whispering, tinkling and gushing along its long channel of Cornish granite” (Part 3, Chapter 6).
In Guy Some’s office there is a T-shirt lying on the desk which carries a picture of Princess Diana as a garish Mexican Madonna, glittering with bits of glass and beads and complete with a flaming scarlet heart of shining satin, on which an embroidered crown is perched lopsided (Part 4, Chapter 1).
In the car with Ciara and Duffield, Strike can see in the wing mirror two motorbikes following them. “Princess Diana and the Parisian underpass; the ambulance bearing Lula Landry’s body, with cameras held high to the darkened glass as it passed; both careened through his thoughts as the car sped through the dark streets (Part 4, Chapter 8).
Alexander McQueen
Rochelle tells Strike that, in Vashti, Lula Landry tried on an Alexander McQueen dress. “‘He killed hiself and all’ she added, in a distant voice.” (Part 3, Chapter 8). Alexander McQueen was a British fashion designer known for unconventional designs and one of the most influential fashion designers in the world from the 1990s until his suicide on 11 February 2010, a month after Lula Landry died.
Elvis
“King of Rock and Roll”. When Strike meets him, Guy Some is wearing a black T-shirt decorated with hundreds of tiny silver studs which form an apparently three-dimensional image of Elvis’s face, “as though his chest were a Pin Art toy” (Part 4, Chapter 1).
Jools Holland
Jools Holland is a musician and TV presenter. Guy Some tells Strike that Joe Mancura wore one of the Princess Diana T-shirts on Jools Holland. (Part 4, Chapter 1).
Prince William
Prince William is the eldest son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Guy Some tells Strike he’s thinking of doing a T-shirt of Prince William as Christ on a long sleeve for winter (Part 4, Chapter 1).
Prince Harry
Prince Harry is the youngest son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Guy Some tells Strike he might design a T-shirt of Prince Harry with an AK47 to hide his cock (Part 4, Chapter 1).
Byron
Lord Byron was a British poet and a major figure of the Romantic movement. He was subject of a string of dramatic scandals. Guy Some on Evan Duffield: “Brush your teeth, you little bastard. You’re not fucking Byron.” (Part 4, Chapter 1).
Marilyn Monroe
Monroe was a famous American actress and model. Guy Some tells Strike than he and Lula had a pact, “like Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. We’d sworn that if either of us was thinking seriously of killing themselves, we’d call the other. She would’ve called me.” (Part 4, Chapter 1).
Ossie Clark designer
Ossie Clark was a British fashion designer. Ciara tells Strike: “‘… you know that great quote about Ossie Clark dresses, how men liked them because they could just, like, open them up really easily and fuck the girls? That’s, like, your mum’s whole era.” (Part 4, Chapter 7).
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman was a famous American poet (1819-1892). Ciara tells Strike that at Dickie Carbury’s party, Lula was laughing her head off, “but then she just, like, recited a poem she knew back at him. Walt Whitman.” (Part 4, Chapter 7).
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was an Irish author and poet (1854-1900). Ciara Porter tells Strike that she told Lula: “Looly, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. That’s Oscar Wilde” … “But Looly didn’t like that side of being famous” (Part 4, Chapter 7).
Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses
He was an English poet who wrote the poem Ulysses, which is quoted at the very end of The Cuckoo’s Calling: “I am become a name.” (Epilogue).