J.K. Rowling isn't the only famous author to use a pen name

Author J.K. Rowling gave us the name that can't be spoken – Lord Voldemort – and the name now synonymous with unbridled literary success – Harry Potter.

Now, Rowling is linked to a new name. In top-secret fashion, Rowling published a crime novel, "The Cuckoo's Calling," under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

"She not only created a new name, but she also created a whole back story, just created this elaborate background of the author. So she was being creative not only in the telling of the story but in the telling of the back story," said Thom Geier, of Entertainment Weekly.

Galbraith was described as a married father of two with a background in the royal military.

Critics found "The Cuckcoo's Calling" surprisingly sophisticated for a first novel.

After getting a mysterious tip, The Sunday Times of London did a little digging and discovered that "The Cuckcoo's Calling" has the same publisher, editor, and agent as Rowling.

Times Arts editor Richard Brooks contacted the publisher.

"What I expected was one of three things. Either they wouldn't come back at all, or they would say, 'It's wrong,' or they would most likely say, 'No comment,'" said Brooks. "They came back at about 10:30 on Saturday morning saying, 'It's J.K. Rowling' and I went 'Phew!'"

In the end, Rowling came out from her invisibility cloak and confessed in a statement to CNN, "I hoped to keep this secret a little longer, because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience! It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback from publishers and readers under a different name."

But now that the book has Rowling's name attached to it, sales are up more than 500,000% on Amazon.

"J.K. Rowling of course gave us these great names live Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore," said Geier. In this new novel, the hero is named Cormoran Strike and the mysterious death of a supermodel named Lula Landry.

"All of these inventive character names that we've come to expect from J.K Rowling are evident in this new book," said Geier.

By adopting an entirely new identity, Rowling joins a small club of successful authors who adopted new pen names for new books.

Anne Rice wrote erotic fiction as A. N. Roquelaure

Stephen King wrote as Richard Bachman to get around his publisher's limit of one book a year. He recently paid homage to his nom de plume on the FX show "Sons of Anarchy," appearing as a character named Bachmann.

J.K. is not Rowling's real name either. Outside of literature, she goes by Jo, short for Joanne.

"My British publisher, when the first book came out, thought, 'This is a book that will appeal to boys.' But they didn't want the boys to know a woman had written it. So they said to me, 'Could we use your initials?' and I said fine. I only have one initial. I don't have a middle name. So I took my favorite grandmother's name, Kathleen," Rowling told Oprah Winfrey in 2010.