Book Review: The Big Over Easy

Reviewed By: Woodstock - RAM

The Big Over Easy     Amazon US HC Amazon UK PB Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada HC
Jasper Fforde
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Fantasy   Police Procedural
Series: A Nursery Crime
July 2005, 383 pages

Fforde firmly established himself as an enjoyable author of comedy with his Thursday Next series, featuring "literary detective" Thursday Next, who investigated wrong doings of all sorts and lived in an England placed in an alternate version of the present day.

Now Fforde has moved on to "nursery crimes" in a new series featuring DI Jack Spratt of the Nursery Crimes Division of Thames CID. Spratt has just completed investigating the three little pigs for the murder of the big bad wolf. When the prosecution failed to convict the trio, Spratt faces the end of his career. But when the giant egg Humpty Dumpty is found smashed to pieces, Spratt and his new assistant Mary Mary are assigned to the case.

It's hard to sum up a reaction to Fforde's work. His books are filled with references to legends, proverbs, familiar aphorisms, cliches of popular culture, characters from other works of suspense fiction, and general silliness. Dialogue occasionally comes straight from well know noir films, but with a tongue-in-cheek twist. He manages through it all to tell a well constructed story which follows the classic path of a police procedural.

Woodstock - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM