Side splitting funny
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Nursery rhyme characters exist and they live in Reading! This as got to be the most brilliant premise since the discworld.
Follow Detective Jack Spratt (he eats no lean) as he hunts down the killer of Humpty Dumpty, deals with domestic crisis's and tries to save his job.
Fforde is up there with Terry Pratchett and Tom Holt
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Brilliant
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I love the Jasper Fforde Books, if you really want to take your mind off things than read Jasper Fforde.
His Second book in the Nursery Crime series is just great fun to read
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Fabulous comic novel
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I just love Jasper Fforde. His novels are so supremely silly but with an underlying hint of erudtion. I would describe reading one of his books as being akin to walking through a comic minefield, you just never know where the next one is going to go off, in a name, in a note at the start of a chapter, in a phrase of genius. The one that had me tittering for days in this one was "the right to arm bears". So, read the Big Over Easy, then go out and buy this one, a real treat.
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Outrageous Fun!
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When was the last time you read a totally off-the-wall novel that stretched your imagination past where it had ever been before? Much as I've enjoyed Mr. Fforde's earlier works (The Big Over Easy in this series and The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten in the Thursday Next series), The Fourth Bear took me to new and more interesting places than I had enjoyed in many years. It was much like the experience of first reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The Nursery Crime Division is back again with Jack Spratt, Mary Mary and Ashley (the alien) pursuing offbeat crimes involving Persons of Dubious Reality (fictional characters). As usual, the members of NCD are constantly being shunted aside, put on probation and ordered off serious cases. But they soldier on in hilarious offbeat fashion. We get to know each of them better in this novel as the story extends to include their relations with the opposite sex.
There are so many oddball threads to this story that you'll wonder how in the world they might be connected. But it doesn't really matter, because each page is full of standalone wit, satire and outrageous good fun.
I hesitate to describe much about the book except to note that it features a homicidal killer, the Gingerbreadman, who is a sort of edible version of an angry Wookie. He likes to tear the arms off his victims. You'll learn a lot about cucumbers and their potential. In addition, the hidden side of several storybook characters will be revealed in surprising ways.
As in The Big Over Easy, the overall novel is written as a police procedural (which aspect itself is quite a satire of the genre). There are solid clues embedded throughout that will safely lead you to the right conclusions . . . if you can stop goggling over the very funny material on every page long enough to pay attention to the clues.
I had an immediate urge to reread the book as soon as I finished it. I cannot remember the last time I had that reaction to a novel.
Be prepared for un-ending laughter!
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Well done Jasper Fforde
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This book has some fantastic references to nursery rhymes and this, coupled with the wornderful and rather artistic way in which Jasper Fforde writes not to mention the humour (my family complained about the way I would burst into laughter at odd moments - that is until I got them to read it) make this a very enjoyable read.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has ever heard a nursery rhyme, anyone who enjoys humour or anyone who likes a good crime novel.
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