The Fourth Bear

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, 378 pages

In the second (and sadly last) of Fforde's Nursery Crime books, Inspector Jack Spratt and his colleague Mary Mary are riding high off the success of their Humpty Dumpty murder investigation (detailed in The Big Over Easy) when a reporter who was investigating an exploded championship cucumber goes missing. Since that reporter is named Goldilocks and was last seen at the forest home of a bear family, the case falls squarely within the purview of the Nursery Crime Division, and Jack and Mary are on the case. Throw in a misguided theme park based on the Battle of the Somme, a powerful multinational company that has its fingers in EVERYTHING, Punch & Judy living next door, and a self-healing automobile, and you've got a classic Fforde story.

Like with The Big Over Easy, this is a gajillionth-time reread, and I still love it. I'd forgotten how meta this book gets — Mary and Jack make lots of references to plot devices and the author, all of which go over the heads of the other characters — but it makes perfect sense if you've read Fforde's Thursday Next series. This is just  smart, silly fun in book form, and it's perfect for breaks from The Tale of Genji.

The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde, 383 pages

Head of the Nursery Crime Division of the Reading police force, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is chronically overworked and underfunded, living in the shadow of the golden boy detective Friedland Chymes and — with cases like charging the three little pigs with premeditated murder for boiling the big bad wolf alive — serving as the laughingstock around town. But then two things happen: he gets a new assistant in inspector Mary Mary (who is from Basingstoke, which is nothing to be ashamed of) and notorious ladies man Humpty Dumpty is murdered. Suddenly, Jack has a high profile case on his hands, and the future of the NCD rests on his ability to solve it, and quickly.

Much like Fforde's excellent Thursday Next series, this is an old favorite of mine. I picked it up this time because, well, The Tale of Genji is just too darn heavy (in both the literary and physical sense) to read at bedtime. I still love this book, and every time I read it, I pick up another clever reference or literary joke. If you haven't read anything by Fforde, this is a good gateway drug.

The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime by Jasper Fforde  383 pp.

Detective Inspector Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crimes Division (NCD) and his assistant, Sgt. Mary Mary investigate the suspicious death of Humpty Dumpty. The NCD is in danger of being disbanded, especially after Spratt failed to get a conviction of the Three Little Pigs in the boiling death of the Big Bad Wolf.  The policing process is more focused on getting their crime stories in print than actually solving crimes. The story is full of humorous references to classic stories and nursery rhymes. There is also one Monty Python reference (a Norwegian Blue, beautiful plumage). Besides the murder investigation, there are side stories involving a giant beanstalk and Prometheus, who is a lodger in Spratt's home. This is such a fun book with many laugh out loud moments. Simon Prebble's audiobook narration is excellent.

The Fourth Bear

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, 378 pages

In this second Nursery Crime book (after The Big Over Easy), Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and Sergeant Mary Mary are looking into the mysterious death of Goldilocks, an investigative reporter who was researching the world of competitive cucumber growing, when sadistic mass murderer the Gingerbreadman escapes from the insane asylum where he'd been held since Jack captured him 20 years earlier. Throw in a mysteriously healing car, an ill-fated trip to Sommeworld (quite possibly the worst idea for a theme park ever), and way too many references to Edward Lear's nonsense poems, and you have what is probably most fanciful, silly, and downright convoluted murder mystery ever published. While it may not be for everyone, I love it and have read it several times. The note at the end — that Ashley (an alien, of course), Jack, and Mary will return in The Last Great Tortoise Race in 2007 — is just a cruel reminder that no third Nursery Crime book was ever published. Sigh...

The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde, 383 pages

When Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is called to the scene of a crime, he knows it's not going to be a run-of-the-mill robbery or murder. As head of the Nursery Crimes Division at the Reading Police Department, DI Spratt cracks down on straw-into-gold scams and searches for Bo Peep's lost (stolen?) sheep. But when Spratt and his new Sergeant Mary Mary are called to investigate the death of Humpty Dumpty, they're in for a much bigger case than they'd normally see at the NCD, full of money laundering, scorned lovers, and a run-in with the mafia don Giorgio Porgia. Like Fforde's fantastic Thursday Next series, The Big Over Easy is a fun book full of literary and pop cultural references, intertwined plots, and great characters. I've read this book many times before, and each time, I catch more references (among other things, I noticed an Elvis Costello shout-out this time around) and have more fun reading it. It's only a matter of time before I pick up the other Nursery Crime novel, The Fourth Bear, once again.