J.K. Rowling reveals six new Cormoran Strike books are in the works

Rowling's detective series, written under the pen name Robert Galbraith, will eventually outnumber the 'Harry Potter' series

According to J.K. Rowling, Robert Galbraith has some writing ahead of him.

Galbraith is actually Rowling's pen name adopted for the purpose of writing "The Cuckoo's Calling" and "The Silkworm," two in a series of detective novels starring private investigator Cormoran Strike.

The author of the "Harry Potter" series announced that Strike would eventually star in over seven books. That means Rowling is planning to produce more books about the PI than she did about the wizard who made her famous.

According to the BBC, Rowling was asked a few days ago whether she was planning to write seven books about Cormoran Strike as she did about Harry Potter.

Rowling responded, "It's not seven. It's more."

Rowling's revelation that Strike was to outstrip "Potter" in number of novels was made in an interview with fellow crime author Val McDermid at the Theakstons Old Peculier crime writing festival. According to its website, the festival is a four-day series of celebration and discussion on the state of crime-writing literature held in North Yorkshire, England.

During the interview, Rowling commented that her plans for the series were very open-ended, saying, "I really love writing these books, so I don't know that I've got an end point in mind," according to the BBC. "One of the things I absolutely love about this genre is that, unlike Harry, where there was an overarching story, a beginning and an end, you're talking about discrete stories. So while a detective lives, you can keep giving him cases."

Rowling's Strike novels have enjoyed critical and popular success. When the first novel in her crime-writing spree came out, however, most readers had no idea that she had written anything at all.

According to the Guardian, Rowling's first Cormoran Strike novel, "The Cuckoo's Calling," was originally released in 2013 as the debut novel of unknown author "Robert Galbraith." The secret didn't remain hidden for long, and Galbraith was quickly revealed to be none other than one of the most famous authors in the world. The book's initially modest sales skyrocketed and the title hit the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

Even though the secret has been out since before the release of her most recent Strike novel, "The Silkworm," Rowling dressed in a gray suit with a pink tie for the crime-writing festival as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the Galbraith persona. According to the BBC, the author also revealed at the event that "Galbriath" is about halfway through with the next Strike novel and already plotting the fourth in the series.

Rowling been busy writing lately, both in and out of the world of Coroman Strike.

The Monitor previously reported that she recently released her first Harry Potter story in seven years to the website Pottermore, starring the boy wizard, now in his thirties, sporting a few gray hairs. Rowling is also working on her first film script, for "Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them," a movie in the Harry Potter universe based in New York City during the 1920s.

According to the BBC, Rowling said that she was enjoying writing for the big screen.

"It's been challenging, it's been fascinating, it has been a lot of fun," she said. "But as fun as it's been, my first love is definitely novels."

While "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is scheduled to be released on November 18, 2016, a release date for Galbraith's next crime novel remains, appropriately enough, a mystery.

Weston Williams is a Monitor contributor.